Broken heart syndrome
by Maxiinwonderland
Summary: This is basically season 10 as i see it happening. Its a calzona centric story but it includes most of the characters. It is written as a usual episode of grey's, to the best of my ability.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Mr. Brightside

Jealousy. Its a powerful force inside every one of us. The green eyed monster that dwells secretly inside us until somebody pokes it with a stick and it eats us alive. It comes in many manifestations, this monster. Sometimes it presents as anger or even sadness. But more often than not it comes raging out as pure stupidity.

It had been a week since the big storm and since then the hospital had been running on its lowest capacity to allow for all the repairs to be made from the storm damage. There had been electricians on every floor repairing the wiring and conduits. Builders fixing the parking lot where the bus had crashed and damaged the tar. Alex drove in to the parking lott, jo in the passenger seat. For the first time in what must have been years he was happy and it scared the hell out of him. He walked jo through the doors, "see you for rounds?" She asked. He nodded before they kissed and split for there respective locker rooms.  
Alex was changing into his scrubs when kepner walked in, "oh sorry." She muttered and turned around in response to his bare chest.  
"Its fine, we've all seen each other half naked anyway."  
"Yeah.. Um anyway, have you seen jackson?"  
"No i just got here. Isnt he still on leave after being blown up?"  
"Uh, no. He's supposed to be back today. Could you tell him im looking for him if you see him?"  
"Yeah whatever. Hey do you have any idea what this thing is we're doing in the pit later?"  
"Oh yeah, its just a trauma exercise, to help us be better prepared if anything like what happened during the storm ever happens again. It'll be fun." She replied perkily.  
"Fun?" Alex sneered, and walked out to meet robbins for rounds.

Christina sidled up to callie who was staring bleakly at the surgery board.  
"Ooh, empty board. That's never good."  
"Yeah i have a feeling its going to be a bad day."  
"I dunno, maybe a walmart will collapse and we'll get loads of crazies with weird medical anomalies to treat."  
"How is it possible that you're so optimistic? You broke up with owen. The storm broke half of the hospital. Our hospital. And webber's practically dead."  
"Chief webber died!?" April kepner exclaimed as she joined them.  
"What do you mean the chief died?" Came dr. Bailey's usual sass.  
"I didnt die! Dont you people have lives to save instead of making up rumours about my mortality?" Said the chief from his wheelchair.  
"Chief!" Kepner cried, leaning down to hug him. "How're you feeling?"  
"Im fine." He replied, eyebrow raised at the rest, expecting an answers.  
"The boards empty." Yang said, gesturing at it. "Im hoping it equals a day filled with trauma.  
"Yeah, i think it just means its going to be a bad day." Replied torres.  
Webber shook his head and wheeled himself away down the hall.  
"Come on kepner, i need you to examine meredith grey's post-op before that trauma exercise." Said dr. Bailey, and they walked away.  
"You know," yang said to torres. "when you've been through the type of stuff meredith and i have been through it kinda makes it easier to be optimistic about things. Like what else could life possibly throw at me, it must be running out of ideas by now." She nodded and walked away.

The attendings were in the pit conducting the team building exercise, following the big storm it had become apparent that they needed to be better prepared to operate without even their back up generators. The goal of the exercise was to go through a series of tasks without the use of electricity. They were in teams of three. They first had to intubate and manually ventilate the patient while performing emergency triage, next figure out the correct way to medicate the patient for the circumstance, and finally perform a simple procedure as quickly and as sterilely as possible. Dr.s murphey, karev and robbins were completing their procedure on a '6month old' dummy, racing neck and neck against the team of dr.s edwards, yang, torres and their dummy.  
Dr. Robbins threw the last stitch and squealed, 'finished!' With a triumphant grin.  
Dr. Hunt walked over to check her teams work as edwards exclaimed, 'You cheated, you cant be done already!" Pointing at dr. Murphey.  
"Oh, dont be a sore loser." She replied, rolling her eyes.  
"No, i wouldn't be surprised if there was a cheater amongst you." Callie gave arizona a dirty look.  
Dr. Hunt ignored them, "Blue team wins. Good work, dr. Robbins." He gave her a nod and clasped his hands together, "Everybody else, get back to work. Your patients still need help."  
"A cheater, huh?" Dr. Robbins returned callies dirty look, poorly masking the hurt in her eyes.  
"I call 'em like i see 'em." Dr. Torres gave her a disgusted once over, before continuing to repair her dummy.  
"Oh, real mature."  
"Just following your lead."  
"Alright enough already!" Karev exclaimed. "This is all because you think callie cut your leg off, right. Well she didnt okay? It was me, i cut your freaking leg off. So just, i dunno, make up already." He sneered and walked away.  
Arizona stared, aghast, after him. "Alex? It was alex. You told me you did it."  
Callie kept her eyes fixed on her patient, "Actually, if you'll recall, i didnt say anything."  
"Well you certainly didnt correct me when i said it. You lied by omission."  
"You know what who cares which one of us held the bone saw, it was my decision either way." Callie dropped her tools and faced arizona, rage in her eyes. "And if you wanna talk about lying, why dont we talk about some of the lies you've told in the past. How about, oh 'i cant live without you and our ten kids, Callie.' Yeah, that was a good one." Callie took a hostile step towards her. "Ooh, what about 'please dont run, callie. I cant lose you.' Yeah, i quite liked that one." Callie took another step, mere inches from arizonas face, she was visibly shaking. "Oh but my personal favourite has to be this. Yeah wait til you hear it," callie looked about the room. "I love you, callie." Callie held her poisonous glare for a second before ripping off her trauma gown and leaving.  
Arizona followed a few seconds later, in tears.

Cristina walked along the hallway, with two cups of coffee and a lighthearted spring in her step. Wending through the corridors before turning into a patient room.  
"Oh is one of those for me." Meredith grinned pointedly at the coffee in Cristina's hands.  
"Sure is." She held one out, happily. "How's foetus doing?" She asked, tickling his chest until he gurgled. Meredith smiled, "he's-"  
"His name is Bailey and its time for him to go back to the NICU." Derek pursed his lips as he walked out of the bathroom. "I'll take that." He said, removing the warm cup from Meredith's hands.  
"Hey thats my coffee!" She pouted  
"You're breast feeding."  
"I thought you decided against breast feeding." Cristina inquired  
"I did."  
"I didn't." Derek replied, picking Bailey up and sweeping him out of the room after giving Meredith a quick kiss on the head.  
She shook her head smiling while yang sipped her own delicious coffee.  
"So how was your training exercise, in the pit?"  
"Eugh, lame. Robbins won. Ooh but Torres totally tore her a new one. I've never seen her so angry. I was almost proud." She replied, nodding thoughtfully.  
Meredith gasped, "what did she say."  
"Oh blah blah blah, feelings. Anyway when are you getting out of here and coming back to work. Dr. Russell still has a bug up his ass about needing more residents for his clinical trial. And i need you here to mediate the awkward between me and owen. Ever since we broke up its just been a series of weird polite interactions."  
Meredith laughed, "i should be back next week. I was supposed to be discharged days ago but i just dont want to leave Bailey, so I'm only being discharged tomorrow."  
"Oh bailey's a big girl she'll be fine, you'll see."  
"No, foetus Bailey. Not Bailey Bailey."  
"Oh. Yeah thats gonna be confusing. Why would you name him after someone we know? You should change it."  
"Bailey saved my life in the OR, despite being morbidly afraid of killing me with a staph infection. That makes 3 times that she's saved my life if you count what she did after the plane crash. She deserves this."  
Cristina thought about it for a second, "yeah fine, i guess you're right. I think ill just call him foetus anyway, just to avoid confusion."  
Meredith laughed.

Arizona had fled into the nearest empty supply closet. It had been a tough time for her ever since the night of the storm, and sure she deserved all of the pain she felt for having hurt callie so badly but she just wished so much that she could take it all back. Actually she wished she hadnt gotten on that damn plane because that would mean that none of the rest of it would have happened. She couldnt remember what it felt like to feel like herself, despite the way things between her and callie had seemed to be rectifying from the outside, it had been completely hollow for arizona. Everyone of these feelings flowed from her eyes now in the torrent that never seemed to end since everything had come out into the open.  
Dr. Lauren boswell was just like avery said, she'd made Arizona feel like she could do anything and she hadnt felt that way in so long. "Its okay to lose a little bit of control." And god had it felt good... To let go of the resentment and the pain, the feelings of betrayal and the overwhelming confusion about how to just live. That moment in the on call room had been purely selfish, arizona feeling something good and taking a breath away from the internal walls that she struggled to hold up. The thing was, arizona hadnt known she'd felt any of that until lauren had given her permission to stop. The truth was it was something arizona needed to realise, to see that she wasnt okay but she had waited so long and bottled it so tightly that it had become only inevitable for it to explode outward in the most destructive way possible. And now she knew how she felt and she knew what she needed and one of those things was Callie. She needed Callie.  
"Oh, sorry i didnt mean to- Arizona?" The owner of the voice had switched from awkwardly polite to concerned in a second. "What's the matter?"  
Arizona refused to look up to confirm the identity because she didnt want to believe that that person was actually here.  
"Why are you here?" She asked calmly, plugging the sudden and simultaneous panic and rage inspired by the voices owner.  
"Im the new head of plastics. It's my first day."  
"What!?" Arizona flung her gaze up to meet Lauren's, utterly dumbfounded. "I own the hospital, i would know if you'd been hired. Who the hell hired you!?"  
"Dr. Avery, he's the majority share holder isn't he? I guess he just got me in under you."  
The subtle innuendo sent arizona off. How was she ever going to fix things with Callie with this women in the hospital full time. She pushed past her and left as quickly as she could. She had a bone to pick with Jackson Avery.

Callie was on her way to perform a knee replacement in OR 1, after her morning she really needed to break some bones. She stopped by the nurses station to over look his chart one last time. Karev pulled in beside her a minute later to do the same.  
"That was a really stupid thing you did earlier." Callie condescended.  
"Excuse me?" Alex replied defensively.  
"Look at what she did to me when she thought id done it. And you're her paeds fellow," callie made a pained face. "Your life's gonna be hell. You never know she might even fire you."  
"I did that for you, and now you're taunting me? What the hell torres. Excuse me for thinking you could use one less problem in your life with Avery hiring Boswell as the new head of plastics but whatever next time i wont bother to try and help you." He turned to walk away, a sour look on his face.  
"Woah. Woah, Alex wait. Avery hired her? To work here?" Karevs glare soften slightly.  
"She starts today." He walked away  
"Great." She utter forlornly. "Where the hell is that knee!" She exclaimed, slamming the chart down and starting towards the O.R. before being pager went off, 911 in the E.R.

"Hey so i just finished rounds on your post-op's. David's incision sight is healing well. The appy in room 12 was complaining of pain but it was just gas and your kidney transplant kid is heading up to dialysis as we speak." Jo smiled at alex.  
"Great, sounds like you're on top of things." He pulled her in for a kiss. "Listen ive got a free 20 minutes, you wanna go get something to eat?"  
Jo laughed, "i've got a better idea for how we can spend those 20minutes."  
"Oh you do?" Alex teased.  
"Uh huh." She took his hand and began leading him away when his pager went off.  
"Crap, 911 in the pit. Come on!" And they ran.

Christina was in the middle of research for dr. Russell's lotus valve trial when she got paged 911 to the E.R. She broke into a run upon leaving the research lab. As she reached her destination she instantly regretted her efficiency at getting there when she found herself side by side with Owen Hunt and nobody else to detract from the white elephant between them.  
"Hey there, dr. Yang."  
"Uh, hey dr. Hunt."  
Thankfully dr. Torres arrived right then to prevent any further awkward conversation.  
"Hey dr. Torres." She said overly enthusiastically which caused a suspicious look in return.  
"Hey yang. Uh so whats coming in?"

Arizona was paged 911 to the pit before she could find Avery. She broke into a run, donned a trauma gown and ran outside to meet Yang, Hunt, Karev, Torres, Kepner and the interns while they waited for the ambulance.  
"What happened?"  
"A rollercoaster flew off the rails at the amusement park. We have multiple traumas coming in."  
"It flew off?" Arizona asked, wide eyed.  
"I told you." Yang said excitedly to callie.  
The first ambulance came in before callie could respond.  
"What have we got?" Dr. Hunt asked  
"22 year old male, Multiple breakages along with a protruding tibia. Possible internal trauma and superficial facial lacs. Stable in the field and received fluids."  
"Okay, torres."  
"On it." She responded, whisking the patient away. "Edwards, go push my knee replacement and meet me in trauma 1."  
The next ambulance followed, "15 year old male. Landed face first on the concrete, multiple facial breaks. Unconscious in the field."  
"Robbins."  
"Uh, no. Let Karev take this one." She knew taking this case meant working with Dr. Boswell and she planned to avoid her at all costs.  
"Whatever," Alex stepped up to take the patient. "Wilson."  
"How many more are coming in?" Dr. Robbins asked.  
"Two more en route." He replied just as they pulled in, stepping up to the first while robbins took the second.  
"22 year old female, both arms broken. Presents with a sucking chest wound and severe abdominal bleeding."  
"Kepner, Yang."  
"Ross you're with us." Kepner said, taking the patient.  
"And you too, mousey." Yang added.  
"Robbins, what've you got there?"  
"15year old female, D.O.A."  
"Are there any more coming in?" Hunt asked the emt.  
"I dont think so."  
"Okay, Robbins go help Dr. Karev and i'll go see if i can help Kepner."  
"And me?" Asked Dr. Murphy  
"You go help where you can." Hunt nodded and left.

Jackson walked into the E.R, trauma room 3 to find Yang and Kepner working on their patient.  
"You paged?"  
"Yeah, her face needs your magic hands." Yang gestured at the patient.  
"We're taking her up to surgery now. Do you want to join us or do you wanna do it post-op?" Asked Kepner.  
"Post-op will be fine. It looks like it you two have your work cut out for you anyway without me getting in your way."  
"Okay."  
"Uh, Jackson. Can we talk, later?"  
"Um, sure April. See you later." He said quickly before rushing away to his next consult.  
Dr. Robbins had gotten to Karev just in time to suggest paging Dr. Avery in an attempt to fend off an awkward day.  
"Oh Dr. Avery." she smiled at his arrival. "15 year old male. multiple facial fractures. His orbital bone is compromising his right eye. We're gonna have to take him to surgery as quickly as possible to prevent permanent damage." She said to him.  
"Wilson why dont you go book an O.R." Karev turned his attention to avery.  
"His C-spine has also been compromised, we've paged Dr. Shepard, he's on his way."  
"Okay lets go put him in the LODOX." Robbins nodded at karev.  
"This looks like the perfect case for Dr. Boswell's first day." Avery smiled. " i'll have her take the lead, i've been looking forward to working with her again.  
Arizona smiled politely back at him, "yeah, about Dr. Boswell. Doesn't the hiring of a new head of department deserve the attention of the board?"  
"Well it is my department she's the head of. She made me feel something i hadn't felt for a long time. I need that in a teacher. Not to mention her reputation, the hospitals lucky to have her. Quite frankly, i don't understand the problem."  
"I just think the board should be informed of pending employee changes is all, Dr. Avery. But you're right, she will be good for business." Arizona out on her best fake smile before walking away to join Alex and letting her face fall.

Dr. Hunt went into trauma 1.  
"How's it going in here, Dr. Torres, need any help?"  
"Nope, everything's under control in here." She smiled. "I can reset most of his bones here but im going to have to take him down to surgery to repair his tibia. We're going to take him down to the LODOX in a minute and then we'll call in Shepard because im worried about this guys lack on consciousness."  
Dr. Hunt left but a few minutes later a young man open the door looking frazzled and in complete shock. "Oh my god." He stated at the sight of the guy on the table.  
"Woah who are you? You can't be in here." Said Callie  
"Im- he's my best friend." He said blankly. "James. He- oh god this is all my fault."  
"Okay sir, why dont you tell me your name and then you can tell me what happened. Take a deep breath, there you go. Keep calm, your friend's in good hands."  
"My- my name is Brian."  
"Hi Brian, my name is Dr. Torres. Now can you tell me what happened to you friend over here?"  
"Yeah he- he was jealous of his brother, Timothy." He paled, "Oh Timothy, where is he is he okay?"  
"Brian we're gonna get you an update on Timothy as soon as we can okay? Just continue with your story."  
"Oh right... Yeah. Okay. Um-"  
"James was jealous of Timothy?"  
"Yeah, yeah. They're brothers and they're dating two sisters, Valery and Andria- how are they?"  
"Ill get you an update on them too okay?"  
"Okay, um so he was jealous because Tim kept making him look bad by being such a good boyfriend to Andria. So he asked me if he could rent the rollercoaster out for the four of them as a romantic gesture." Brian took a deep breath. "But then on the sly he asked me if i could make the ride stop halfway through so that he could play the hero or something. I wasnt really sure what his plan was. So i agreed. But when i pulled the emergency stop there was this giant bang and i saw something shoot off one of the front wheels and then the whole car just shot off in the opposite direction. They were 30ft up and they just fell into the trees underneath and- and..."  
Brian began hyperventilating.  
"Okay somebody get him a paper bag and take him through to the waiting area."  
Callie finished what she could and then accompanied Edwards on the way to the LODOX, but upon seeing Arizona there avoid another awkward and possibly vocal situation.  
"You know what, im gonna go find Dr. Shepard. I'll meet you back in trauma 1. Why dont you inform Dr. Karev and Robbins about what Brian told us"  
Dr. Hunt proceeded to trauma 3.  
"Need any help here?" He asked, sticking his head in the door.  
"Nope, its pretty crowded in here as it is. Thanks." Replied Kepner.  
"Okay then." He replied, nodding to Kepner and Yang in turn.

Dr. Bailey exited her genome lab and walked down the hall into the general ward. She stopped outside of a room and took a deep breath. It wasn't like her to be nervous, not until lately. Lately she was nothing but nerves. She turned to walk away when-  
"Oh just come in already, Dr. Bailey. You've been lurking outside of my room all day." Yelled chief webber.  
So she walked in, "I have not been lurking!" She allowed the power in her voice to subside. "Ho- uh how are you doing?"  
"Well im confined to a wheel chair until i can begin physical therapy."  
"Right because of the muscular spasms." She looked forlornly at the floor.  
"I'll never perform surgery again."  
"Chief i am so sorry."  
"Stop your groveling Bailey. Its fine, i was 7 years away from retirement. Im still part owner of this hospital, its not the end of the world."  
"Well i just wanted to apologize for what happened before the storm. When i-"  
"When you called me out on being selfish." He raised his eyebrow.  
"Well, yes-"  
"You were right Miranda. Everything you said. So I'm sorry for not giving you the respect you deserved and for putting the hospital before you."  
"Well, damn right you're sorry." She nodded. Her usual sass saturating her tone. "Apology accepted." And she sashayed out of the room.

Callie had finished with her protruding tibia, along side with Shadow-Shepard who was performing a craniotomy on him at the same time, he was currently sleeping off the anaesthesia in his room. After which she went in to help Yang and Kepner's patient by setting and casting her broken arms, it had all gone smoothly. She had then gone straight into her knee replacement. Callie was rocking her surgery. Music was blaring over the sound of her power drill. She was a god, building a man a new knee. She felt invincible. It was why she loved surgery, the raw power that rushed within her could take her mind off of anything else outside of the OR.  
"Pressure's bottomed out." Dr. Ross exclaimed.  
"What the hell, what happened?"  
"I have no idea."  
"Oh god did he throw a clot? Somebody page yang stat!" She threw her gaze over the scrub nurses. "Okay lets push a unit of epi and prep him for and emergency thoracotomy."  
"V fib!"  
"Crap, begin manual compressions. Push another unit of epi and one of ephidrine. Page Yang again."  
"She's here!" Dr. Ross exclaimed  
"Okay what happened?" She inquired while gloving up.  
"His pressure bottom out and he went into v fib. He's been given two units of epi and one of ephidrine."  
"How long have you been performing compressions?"  
"3 minutes, no response."  
"Okay it sounds like a massive MI. Im gonna have to open him up. 10blade!" She held out her hand, receiving the scalpel before making an incision along his left side.  
"Rib spreader!" She placed the device with expert precision and threw her hand in to meet his heart.  
"Woah his hearts huge."  
"What? He indicated no history of heart disease and his family corroborated that."  
"No, no his pericardium is filled with blood. It must have happened just now. The heart tried to pump the clot and tore a hole into his left ventricle. Gimme the biggest needle there is." She inserted the syringe and decompressed the pericardium..  
"Thats a lots of blood Hang."  
"How's his pressure?"  
"He's still critical."  
"Okay scalpel. Im gonna have to get this tear under control. 10.0 prolene.  
Okay the sutures arent holding, lets canulate the heart and set up bypass."  
"Lets get some lap pads in here try and get some visualization." Said Dr. Torres  
"His ventricle is shredding, his heart muscle is made of paper!" Dr. Yang froze to think  
"Dr. Yang, what do we do? Christina!?"  
"Im thinking!" She was mumbling to herself, considering every option but they were all coming up short. She had no idea how to save this man. His heart was in ribbons.  
"He's arresting." Said Dr. Ross  
"Okay gimme the paddles, charge to 10." She placed the paddles either side of his heart. "Clear."  
"No response."  
"Charge to 20, clear."  
"Still nothing."  
"Charge it again, push another of epi. Clear."  
"He's not coming back." Said Dr. Torres, dumbfounded.  
Yang nodded in agreement, "time of death 14:53."  
"I can't believe it. What the hell happened to him?"  
"Im not really sure, his heart muscle was tissue paper though. I dont think he could have been saved."  
"I shouldn't have taken him into surgery." She pulled off her gloves and gown and walked to the scrub room  
"You couldn't have known. You said it yourself, no heart problems were indicated." Yang mirrored torres' movements. "Do you want me to come talk to the family with you?"  
"No, they aren't even here, it was supposed to be a standard knee replacement. Who dies during a knee replacement." She replied as she scrubbed, staring blankly into confusion.

Dr. Robbins, Shepard, Avery and Boswell were in a consult room looking over Timothy's scans.  
"It's going to be difficult to operate on his face without compromising his neck and vise versa. But his lower jaw seems to be intact. I propose we lie him on his stomach and place him at a 45 degree angle. We can rest his chin in a piece of custom foam and i can stabilize his neck. Then we can transfer him onto his back and support his head and neck in another piece of foam while you fix his orbital fracture." Said Dr. Shepard.  
"Fantastic." Replied dr. Boswell. "The angle will keep the bone from further compromising his eye while you work on him and the whole set up prevents any of his injuries from being agitated. Absolutely brilliant. They really meant it when they said you were the best, Dr. Shepard." She simpered.  
"Okay well i'll have him prepped for surgery and then you can page Dr. Boswell when you're ready for her. Dr. Avery said he's been dying to assist you on another surgery. Looks like you wont even be needing me for this one." Dr. Robbins smiled.  
"Perfect, i'll see you in the O.R. Dr. Boswell. Dr. Robbins." He nodded and left  
"Oh, i thought you could assist me Dr. Robbins. I've been dying to be in the O.R. with you again. Dr. Avery can take the next one." The two walked from the consult room.  
"Oh no, i've got other patients. I think you'll be just fine without me." Dr. Robbins replied politely as they made their way to the nurses station.  
"I could be amazing with you though." She said with a suggestive smile. She happened to glance into exam room 4 and her smile turned almost imperceptibly mischievous.  
"Okay look. I told you before, what happened between us was a mistake. I've been a mess for a long time and ive been blaming callie for it. And i think you picked up on that and took advantage of it a little bit. I love callie, i want to be with callie and i fully intend to win her back. So you and me, its not happening. Im a professional and ill be that way anytime we're forced to work together but other than that you don't get to exist in my life."  
Lauren laughed and put her hand on Arizona's arm and for the sake of not making a scene for the nurses to latch onto, Arizona didn't fling it off immediately as she felt so compelled to do. "Arizona, it doesn't sound like Callie is in any mind to take you back from what i heard this morning. When you see that for yourself i'll be here waiting to make you feel all better." She winked and opened the chart in her hands to look it over.

April went in to check on her patient's post op.  
"Hi Valery. My names Dr. Kepner im one of the surgeons who operated on you this afternoon. How are you feeling?"  
"Groggy... Sore. What happened?"  
"You were in an accident. The roller coaster you were in flew off the rails, you sustained two broken arms and abdominal trauma. We were able to fix everything in the surgery. You should be just fine in a couple of months." April smiled reassuringly.  
"And the others? James, Timothy... Andria. How are they?"  
"James is fine, he broke a few bones as well and sustained a brain bleed. From what i hear he's stable and should be awake in a few hours."  
Valery nodded for Dr. Kepner to continue.  
"Timothy sustained some pretty serious face and neck injuries. He's still in surgery."  
"And Andy, how is she?"  
"I um, unfortunately her injuries proved to be so severe that she didn't survive the ride to the hospital. She was pronounced D.O.A. And her body was moved to the morgue. Im very sorry for your loss." April finished her sentence through the violent sobs of her patient. She used her discretion and determined to give the patient some privacy to morn. "If you uh- need anything just hit the call button and the nurse will come help you." She nodded and walked away  
"Oh Jackson!" April exclaimed. "Do you have a minute?"  
Jackson sighed before turning around and smiling politely. "Sure April."  
He opened the door to the conference room, allowing her to enter before himself.  
"What is it?" He asked gently.  
"H- how are you?" She asked.  
"Much better, there's no infection, my wounds are healing well. I should be back to normal in a few more days." He smiled  
"Oh good. Im glad to hear that." She smiled back.  
"Okay well if thats all, i'll-"  
"Oh no. Jackson. We haven't had a chance to talk since the night of the storm. You- you haven't given me any answer."  
"Yeah, i know. I," he glanced out the window to see Dr. Boswell walk past with Dr. Robbins. "Uh, April, I cant. You and Matthew, you belong together and i- well i've met somebody." He gave her a sympathetic look. "Im sorry April."

Callie was having a bad day and she was freaking out. She thought she could just come back to work and live life like things were fine. Because what had really happened? Her spouse had cheated, like she hadnt experienced that before. The mistress was working in the hospital, so what. Arizona hadnt fallen for her, she was just taking out her anger on Callie besides what had happened to the last mistress? She'd gotten cancer, went crazy and skipped town. Callie had just brushed herself off and gotten back to it, she was fine. She was pretty pissed off but she was fine. And then that patient who shouldnt have died... Died. Like arizona who she never expected to cheat cheated. Like her wife who was supposed to be there through thick and thin wasnt. Callies resolve was broken by the family that had been shattered by her phone call. She held her own for as long as she was on the line with them but found her way into a deserted on call room directly after. She was sad and enraged and just beside herself, because she'd been kidding herself and she had no idea how to do this. Was this the room where her marriage had been betrayed. Who knew, it might as well have been. Callie was in the middle of a full blown break down, she punched the wall hard. Drawing bloody lines over her knuckles. The pain sobered her and she let everything go in a deluge of tears, finding herself to a bed and cradling her swelling hand.  
"Crap. Crap, crap."  
The door opened and two intermingled bodies found their way in. It was Karev and Wilson celebrating their newfound romance.  
"Oh, Dr. Torres." Dr. wilson was a deer in headlights. "What happened to your hand."  
"Woah, Callie." Alex turned to jo. "Why dont you go, i've got this. Ill meet you later" She followed his suggestion immediately.  
"You're just everywhere today arent you Karev." He took her injured hand in his and examined it. He turned his head and found the smeared bloody streaks on the wall next to the door.  
"Come on, you're gonna need stitches. Are you gonna be okay?"  
"Well you tell me."  
"Your hand will be fine in a week or so. But i wasn't asking about your hand." Karev picked up a suture kit on the way into the exam room 4 and began repairing Callie's hand.  
"Yeah... No, i dont know. It's just been a tough day. God, no. Its been a tough year and i just... Got angry." Callie watched to world move along with itself, through the exam room's window while Alex cleaned and dressed her throbbing hand.  
"For what its worth, i've had my share of crappy years. You know if you ever wanna talk about it.. Or whatever. Even now im happy with Jo and all but i just cant shake this fear that she's gonna go crazy or die. Like if i relax and let myself be happy life's just gonna knock me right back to where i was."  
"Arizona cheated on me." Callie laughed self depreciatingly, "But i kinda have the feeling you already knew that. Does the whole hospital know?"  
"Yeah i knew, but Robbins told me. It was right after while we were tripping over ourselves trying to find batteries for all those damn baby ventilators. I dont know if you care but it seemed like she really regretted it."  
"Man i just wish Mark was here. He'd know what to do, he always knew what to do. But no he has to be dead and now im left taking care of an almost two year old all by myself because Arizona hasnt even been home since before the storm."  
"Okay you're almost set, you should go find some ice when we're done. I bet Robbins is just giving you time to cool off by the way. You two were made for each other, you'll be back together before you know it."  
"Yeah, it looks like it." Callie gave a stoney nod toward the nurses station through the window. Where Arizona and Boswell were standing, speaking attently to each other and smilling. "You know what Karev, i need to get out of here. Can you have somebody take over my patients for a while. I cant do this right now."  
"Well, yeah but where are you-"  
"Oh and Alex, for what its worth i hope Jo doesnt go crazy or die on you. Its about time you got to be happy." Torres swept out of the room and walked past Arizona and Lauren without even a glance. She didnt notice Arizona's face drop at the sight of her, or her mouth fall agape at the sight of her bandaged hand. She stalked straight up to the day care centre and had the nurse page Dr. Robbins and let her know that it was her night to take Sofia even though Arizona hadn't seen Sofia since before the storm either. And then she walked out of the hospital doors and was gone.

Arizona responded to her page from the day care centre immediately.  
"What's the matter?" She asked the lady in charge.  
"Dr. Torres said to let you know that it was your night to pick Sofia up because she wasnt going to be able to."  
"Momma!" Sofia exclaimed.  
Arizona switched her perplexed gaze at the nurse to one of delight towards her daugther. "Hey baby girl. I missed you." She picked her up. "Yes i did. Oh yes." She peppered sofias face with kisses.  
"Okay well my shift isnt over yet. I'll be back to get her a little later. Thank you for letting me know." She switched her attention back to Sofia. "Mamma's gotta go now. I'll see you later baby girl, i love you." She put her down, waved and left.

April decided to check on her patient one last time before going home.  
"Hi Valery, how are you doing?"  
"Can i see James, is he awake yet? I need to see him."  
"Yes he's awake but im not really allowed to-"  
"Brian came by, he told me what James did; what he did. I need to see him. To tell him it wasn't his fault that Andy-" her voice broke. "He couldn't have known, i just i need to tell him i dont blame him. Please."  
"Okay, you know what, i'll see what i can do."  
A little while later April wheeled her into James' room, meeting Dr. Robbins and Boswell who were informing him of his brother's condition. They cut their speech short at her arrival.  
"Oh please continue, nobody's told me how Tim is doing."  
Dr. Robbins nodded, "he sustained severe injuries to the face and neck. Dr. Shepard was able to stabilize his spine and is confident he will be able to walk again and regain complete mobility with therapy. Dr. Boswell the performed surgery on his face to relieve the pressure his cheek bone was putting on his eye. We weren't able to fix all of his facial fractures due to his neck injury so he will require a few more surgeries in the coming months and even then he wont look quite the same as he used to."  
Valery looked over at James and noticed the silent tears streaming down his face.  
"Oh James no." She looked at April to push her closer.  
"James are you in pain, would you like me to order more pain meds for you?" Dr. Robbins asked.  
He shook his head, "no. No i deserve this pain. Its all my fault. I ruined his life," he glanced at Valery before looking up at the ceiling. "And i killed your sister. Oh god I'm so sorry. Im so so-." He was overcome with sobs.  
"No James, no. You couldn't have known. You didn't know. You didn't this make this happen. It isn't your fault. Its just something horrible that happened to us. Its not your fault, don't you dare blame yourself for this."  
"Excuse me." Said Dr. Robbins before leaving.  
"Yes, why don't we give you some privacy." Agreed Dr. Boswell, looking at Dr. Kepner.  
"Yes, ill be just outside when you want to go back to your room, okay." She said to Valery who nodded, permitting the doctors to go.

Jealousy can ruin lives.

Derek walked in to Meredith's room to see her before going home for the night.  
"Hey." She grinned. How was your day?"  
He smiled warmly and lay beside her in the bed, "well i performed surgery at a 45 degree angle to stabilize a kids neck because his face was crushed and i attended a very boring board meeting and just now i snuck into this attractive patient's room and crawled into her bed."  
"Oh i see, but i thought you were married, wouldnt that kind of behaviour make your wife very jealous?"  
"Oh i hope so." He replied, kissing her gently while she giggled.

Jealousy can also be fun.

"Gees, if looks could kill." Alex said in response to Jo's sour expression. "Who are you glaring at?"  
"Is there anyone in this hospital you haven't slept with?"  
"I- uhm. Oh crap."  
"We've been trying to do it all day but then i was speaking to this nurse and i realized you've done it with everyone. So we're not gonna do it in the hospital."  
"You aren't mad?"  
"No. You're gonna take me to dinner and you're gonna earn it. Im gonna drive you crazy until you want it so bad that sex with me is the most mind blowing thing thats ever happened to you."  
"Oh, well okay then." He put his arm around her and they walked out together. Both wearing smug grins.

Jealousy can be a motivator.

Arizona was at Callie's apartment, her apartment, for this first time since before the storm. She put her keys in the lock and took a deep breath before opening the door, sure that she would be meeting another awkward and hostile encounter. But as she found her way inside she found the apartment empty and some things oddly out of place. But she attributed it to having not been there in so long and thought nothing of it. She decided to make dinner and so she fed sofia and put her down to sleep, sitting at the table with a glass of wine she awaited Callie's immanent return home.

But mostly jealousy just leaves you alone and confused.


	2. Chapter 2: mexican wine

2. Mexican wine

As surgeons, mistakes happen; far more often than we would like them too. We dedicate our lives to learning everything possible about the human body but still it surprises us. And when that happens, when something goes horribly wrong. We have to figure out who is to blame. So we hold M&M's and obsess over every detail, and we strive to be the best we can be so that when the hammer falls and the man on top asks what went wrong the answer isn't your name.

Dr. Avery walked into the board room with the peace offering of donuts and the naive idea that they would keep the others from eating him alive again during this meeting.  
"Good morning everybody." He nodded to each of them in turn. "Oh, Dr. Torres isn't here yet."  
"Im sure she's just running late, we can start without her." Dr. Robbins smiled.  
"Okay." Dr. Avery nodded. He managed to get through almost the whole meeting amicably, one sentence away from ending the most boring part of his day.  
"Alright, well is there anything anybody would like to discuss before we break for the day?"  
"Ooh actually yes." Chimed Dr. Robbins. "I wanted to discuss the hiring of Dr. Boswell."  
Avery's relief vanished with a heavy sigh.  
"Dr. Avery's proposal was approved by both Dr. Yang and myself." Dr. Hunt interjected. "Is there a problem with her?"  
"Oh no. I wanted to talk about the protocol involved rather than Dr. Boswell in particular. We're still using the one that Pegasus put in place of prospectives needing to be approved by the chief and two board members. I thought we could implement a more grey-sloan friendly protocol."  
"And what would you propose, Dr. Robbins?"  
"Well i thought it could be changed to a majority approved board decision at the chiefs recommendation. So we can be a little more hands on about who we let in here to cut people up."  
"Okay, well all in favour of Dr. Robbins' proposal?"  
Everybody raised their hand.  
"Alright, well if thats all, everybody can go about the rest of their day." Dr. Avery nodded to the room in general, dismissing them while he gathered his things.  
"Dr. Robbins, a word."  
"Yes, Dr. Avery." She turned, giving him a smile.  
"Dr. Hunt has been hiring people every week since we took ownership, but the second i hire somebody all of a sudden it's a problem?"  
"Oh, Jackson. That had nothing to do with you. I was just-"  
"No, you and the others have had a vendetta against me ever since the beginning. Why? Because my mother bought my place here? Because i got in the way of your special plan to rule the hospital?"  
"We bought the hospital to save it for everyone, not so we could rule it. Don be ridic-"  
"Don't be ridiculous?! Oh so I'm just imagining how I'm always made out to be the bad guy. With Bailey and the CDC. With your ingenious 'lets vote on it so we can do the opposite of whatever Jackson wants to do' strategy. Now i cant even hire somebody without the hospital protocols being called into question. Well I'm done being the punching bag." He put his hand up to silence any reply from Dr. Robbins and stormed from the board room.

April Kepner met the ambulance at the E.R. Doors.  
"19 year old male. Unconscious in the field with third degree hand and facile burns and shrapnel entering the face, neck and upper chest as well as his hand and arm; all on the left side of the body."  
"What happened to him?"  
"From what i can tell his cellphone exploded while he was talking on it."  
Aprils eyes grew wide in shock as she wheeled the patient into the trauma room.  
"Page Dr. Shepard." She ordered a nurse.

"Hey Bailey." Called Dr. Robbins. "Have you seen Dr. Torres?"  
"Your wife? Now why would i know where your wife is? Why don't you try paging her?"  
"I already did. I've been paging her for the past hour."  
"She's probably is surgery." Bailey shook her head and walked away.  
Surgery, yes. That would explain why Callie hadn't made it to the board meeting, she was caught up in surgery.  
"Bailey wait," she took a few steps to catch up with her. "Look i know you're still mad about the CDC thing. I mean of course you are, who wouldn't be, but we were friends. And i don't have very many of those, especially lately. So i just- i wanted to say that i hope that hasn't changed because i could really use a friend. And so could you. I mean you cant have enough friends, right?"  
"Dr. Robbins, i am a grown woman and here you are thinking I'm gonna hold a vendetta against you all. What because you told on me? Because you got me in trouble? Three people died! and we had no idea why, of course you had to call the CDC." Dr. Bailey shook her head.  
"Oh. Well you know, you locked yourself in your research lab; refused to talk to anyone. And you know, you've been curt."  
"Oh, Ive been curt?"  
"Yeah, just a little bit."  
"And so that must mean I'm punishing you all for doing your jobs. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that i killed three people?" Her sass melted into undeniable vulnerability. "Three people are dead because of me. Three families are destroyed. Because of me. You wanna tell me how I'm just supposed to pick my life up and move on after that? Do you have any idea because i, i-"  
Arizona folded her into a gentle hug. "We all make mistakes, Miranda, don't let them define you."

April and Jackson were sitting in trauma room 2 debriding the patient. He was awake so the two were trying to distract him from the procedure by asking him questions.  
"So Marcus, what exactly happened?" Dr. Kepner spoke more loudly than usual because he presented with deafness in the left ear.  
"My battery was swollen. It had been swollen for weeks, my mom kept telling me to replace it, but i didn't think this would happen; that it would actually explode. One second I'm making plans to go to a party this weekend and the next... Im waking up here."  
"A party huh?" Dr. Avery encouraged him.  
"Yeah, i was finally going to make a move on this girl i like- but thats not going to happen anymore." He sighed heavily. "My head is killing me, do you think i could get some aspirin or something?"  
"We can't up your pain meds right now, Marcus, because you're going up to surgery soon." April responded.  
"Okay well maybe i could just not talk for a bit. I think that will help."  
"Sure, just make sure you stay awake for me okay." Replied Jackson.  
"Okay."  
An awkward silence settled over them before April broke it, "I'm sorry for making things weird again, between us."  
"I think things were always weird between us." He smiled. "They probably always will be, its our dynamic."  
April laughed, "You're right. But i still miss you as my friend."  
"Yeah." He sighed. "Im sorry for rejecting you."  
"Oh it's- it's okay, i mean you were right. Matthew and i are meant for each other i was just... Having cold feet. Or something."  
"You guys will be great together."  
"Thanks Jackson." She smile genuinely. "I didn't know you and Stephanie had gotten so serious." She remarked.  
"Stephanie?" He entertained a moment of confusion. "Yeah-"  
"Hey we've got that surgery on the lotion baby in an hour, are you still scrubbing in?" Karev stuck his head through the doorway.  
"Yeah, I'm almost done here and ill come right up." Dr. Avery responded.

Arizona wended through the halls to the surgical board.  
It informed her that Callie wasn't scheduled for surgery at all yet that day.  
"Hey, interns," Arizona called over Dr. Ross and Wilson with a gesture of the hand.  
"Have either of you seen Dr. Torres?"  
"Not since her knee replacement decided to blow his ventricle on her table yesterday. I swear it was the most interesting surgery i've been in since Dr. Shepard kicked me off his service. Well until the guy died." Dr. Ross shook his head and walked away.  
"What about you?" She gave an expectant look to Dr. Wilson.  
"Oh- um, i probably shouldn't say." She shook her head.  
"Where's my wife, Dr. Wilson?"

Dr. Yang was having a boring day, she had performed one valve replacement and then she had guided a second year resident through an angioplasty. She sat in the cafeteria reading a study on the applications of the Da Vinci machine in valve replacement surgery while eating a cup of chocolate pudding.  
"You know we have one of those." Dr. Hunt smiled.  
"What?" She asked with bored indifference.  
"The da Vinci?"  
"Oh, yeah, up in the general ward." She nodded with a polite smile.  
"So ho-how are you doing?"  
"Good. Im good. How are you?"  
"Yeah, good." He looked at her indecisively for a moment. "Christina, i-"  
Her pager went off, thankfully ending the awkward encounter.  
"Ooh the E.R.!" She scurried away gleefully.

"Karev, hey. What happened with you and Dr. Torres in the on call room yesterday?"  
She found him in the NICU with his stethoscope to a babies chest.  
"She was pretty upset, because of you."  
"Excuse me?" Arizona gave him the raised eyebrows.  
"I found her in there with a bloody hand, crying."  
"What happened to her hand?"  
"From what i can tell she hit the wall, hard. I had to put in some stitches. Then she looks out of the window and sees you and Dr. Easy A laughing it up at the nurses station and tells me that she has to go and that i have to find somebody to cover her service for her."  
"Did she say where she was going?" Arizona was visibly distressed. She remembered the moment that Alex was talking about. Dr. Boswell had been pulling out her best moves to try and ease Arizona's resentment. Cracking jokes, touching her arm and being all around charming. She could understand how that would have upset Callie for sure. Her heart sank.  
"No, she just left. You know, you're doing a really good job of acting like me." He snickered.  
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"  
"You know what i don't have time for this, i have to take this kid up to CT and then go prep for surgery." He pushed past her and left.

Yang strolled up to the E.R. desk. "You paged?"  
"Bed 2"  
"Okay, Mrs Casey." Christina addressed the patient upon arriving at her bed. "My name is Dr. Yang, i see here you're complaining of chest pains." She referred to the chart. "Can you tell me when those started?"  
"Yes, it was right in the middle of American Bake off, when Francine was making the most beautiful chocolate and cherry tarts."  
"And what time was that?"  
"Oh it must have been about half an hour ago. I thought immediately that i must be having a heart attack so i called over the ambulance."  
"Can you describe any other symptoms to me?"  
"Of course, I'm finding it hard to breathe and I'm dizzy. Um- nausea, oh and I'm perspiring like nobodies business." She said fanning herself with her right hand.  
"Alright Mrs Casey, I'm going to perform a quick exam and then we're going to run some tests."  
"Okay."  
"Take a deep breath for me." Yang listened through her stethoscope. "Now, cough. Very good." She finished the rest of the exam and the walked up to Dr. Brooks, "Mousy, get me an EKG on bed 2 and start her on oxygen. Do a full cardio work up, it's probably a heart attack. Or a dissecting aorta." She fantasized. "No, Yang, don't get ahead of yourself just because its a slow day." She noticed Dr. Brooks' perplexed look. "What are you still doing here? Go. Cardio work up." She shooed her away with her hands.

Markus Thum was finally out of his surgery so Dr. Shepard proceed into his room to inform him how the procedure had gone as well as to perform a post op exam.  
"Hello, Mr. Thum, how are you feeling?"  
"Sore. Tired."  
"Well that's to be expected from an injury like yours." He shone his torch into both of the patients eyes respectively to check for pupillary response. "Squeeze my hand?" He obliged. "Very good. Are you experiencing any nausea, vertigo or shortness of breath?"  
"A little, yeah. The side of my head feels kind of muffled."  
"Yes. The explosion unfortunately destroyed all of the aural apparatus in your left ear as well as the actual ear itself. Its possible that your hearing could be restored if you meet the criteria for certain surgeries, but ill let you speak to the otologist about that in a few weeks. As for the loss of your ear, that shouldn't be a problem to fix, there are many procedures available that can restore your appearance."  
"Thanks doc, so how did my surgery go?"  
"It was successful, there was a piece of shrapnel about and inch long imbedded into your brain. We were able to remove it and repair the area with seemingly no problems. We'll have to monitor you for a while to be sure. Apart from that we removed the rest of the debris and cleaned away the burned tissue. You'll have to under go skin grafts within the next few months but ill have the plastic surgeon talk more to you about that later."  
"The one ear thing might work for me. It could be a good ice breaker. I could say i fought off a bear."  
Dr. Shepard chuckled, "Sure, every girl likes a bit of danger."

Alex and Jackson were in the O.R. Performing surgery on a baby who had suffered a horrible reaction to contaminated baby lotion and needed skin grafts.  
"God can you imagine bathing your baby, putting cream on him and then waking up in the middle of the night to find him screaming because half of his skin was melting off." Jackson said.  
"It's pretty horrific." Was Karev's reply.  
"It did the same thing to his mother's hands. Im doing her surgery later tonight-"  
"Yeah, yeah its a fricken nightmare. Can we talk about something else please."  
"What's the matter with you?"  
"Jo's withholding sex until it feels 'special'." He shook his head.  
"Wow how did you piss her off so soon?" Jackson snickered.  
"I didn't piss her off. She's just... put off by the amount of people i've slept with in the hospital."  
"Oh thats bad." Jackson scoffed.  
"Whatever, like your love life's any better." That wiped the smile off of Avery's face.  
"Yeah you're right there." He shook his head. "April asked me to give her a reason not to marry flash mob guy."  
"What'd you say?" Karev was visibly entertained.  
"I told her there was somebody else. I turned her down."  
"You fell for Edwards?"  
"No. I didnt. Thats-" he sighed. "That's a whole 'nother mess."

Dr. Brooks paged Dr. Yang back to the pit to inform her of Mrs. casey's status.  
"What have we got?"  
"EKG was normal, chest X-ray was clean and she was negative for cardio troponins."  
"Dammit." Yang looked disappointed. "Okay start her on heparin and and nitroglycerin." She walked over to the patients bed.  
"Oh Dr. Yang, you're back." Mrs. Casey smiled.  
"Yes, your tests came back. Good news, you are not having a heart attack. What's happening is most likely a form of acute coronary syndrome cause by unstable angina. We're going to treat you for it with medication and if your condition doesn't improve in a few hours then we'll take a more aggressive course of action."  
"Its not a heart attack?" Relief spread through the patient. "Oh thank goodness. Thank you Dr. Yang." She took Yangs hand in her own.  
"It's a pleasure, Mrs Casey." She replied, ignoring her raging discomfort at being touched. "Do you have any questions?" The patient shook her head so Yang took her leave.

Dr. Robbins walked into merediths room.  
"Hi Dr. Grey, congratulations on Bailey." She said with a warm smile. She hadnt had a chance to come and speak to Meredith since the storm, interacting with Derek at any point when she had anything to discuss regarding the baby.  
"Thank you," she said returning the smile. "They're sending me home today, im not exactly looking forward to leaving him here."  
"Well that's what i came to see you about. He's doing really well, his lungs are strong and he hasn't had any complications. I can send him home tomorrow."  
"Oh you can!? That's great!" They shared a brief hug. When they separated Arizona had watery eyes. "Woah," Meredith laughed. " arent i supposed to be the weepy hormonal one? What's the matter?"  
"Oh its nothing." Arizona put on a brave face and wiped her eyes. "Im fine." She smiled.  
"You know Arizona, we have been through quite a lot together in the past year. You can talk to me if you want."  
Arizona laughed, "you're right we have. But really, im fine. Thank you Meredith."  
"I remember when my definition of fine was having arguments with Derek in the middle of the hospital." She smiled reassuringly.  
"You heard about that?"  
"I have my sources."  
"I didnt know you and Derek ever had any problems. You always seem so perfect together."  
Meredith laughed, "you weren't around back when i was trying to kill myself every chance i got. It was a bit of a deal breaker for Derek."  
Arizona looked shocked.  
"Oh yeah. I stuck my hand inside a man who had a bomb inside of him. Then i pulled the bomb out and it vaporized the bomb squad guy who took it from me. Oh after that i fell into the Sound and decided not to swim. I drowned. When Derek pulled me out it should have been too late but somehow he and Bailey and chief Webber all brought me back to life. That was the day my mom died. I saw her in my death coma and she told me to 'keep being extraordinary.' Then theres the time i told Gary Clarke to shoot me instead of Derek, you must have heard about that one."  
"How did you over come all of that?" Arizona asked quietly, not making eye contact.  
"Well i started seeing a skrink. I never believed a shrink would be helpful. But she was. And she helped me out of the dark and twistys and well, here i am."  
"It was that easy?"  
"No. I was probably more pissed off during that time than ive ever been in my life. But i needed to fix myself so i could be the person Derek needed me to be, i owed him that much. Tequila helped. Man am i going to miss tequila if Derek keeps on about me breast feeding."  
Arizona laughed, "im not sure any number of shrinks or shots of tequila will bring Callie back. I uh- cheated on her, and then i said some not nice things to her afterwards. I broke her heart and to top it all off the woman i cheated with started her first day here yesterday. I just found out that Callie left, for who knows how long, to who knows where and she left our daughter here for me to find." Arizona broke down in tears. "What if she never comes back?"  
"Wow you pulled a Karev. That's impressive, i thought i was the only one other than him that could pull that off." Meredith said, rubbing Arizona's back soothingly.  
"Why does everyone keep saying that?"  
"Alex and i developed a bit of a track record for sabotaging every good thing that ever happened to us. I think he blames himself for more of than he's responsible for though. He couldnt have known that face-girl was going to go crazy and pee on my couch or that Izzy would get cancer and skip town." Meredith shrugged.  
"So what did Derek do when you sabotaged your relationship with him?"  
"Well for the most part he actually stuck around. But when he was really upset he'd disappear into the woods and drink until somebody came to talk him out of it. Once he actually took a baseball bat and hit my engagement ring into the middle of nowhere."  
Arizona laughed, "thats quite intense."  
"Yeah it was."  
"Hey, Mere. I need your opinion on- oh tears. I'll come back later." Christina said as she walked into the room and quickly turned on her heel.  
"No Christina wait, Arizona here could use an introduction to our good friend tequila." She smiled good-naturedly. "And since im on bed rest and breastfeeding or whatever, you are my proxy."  
"Uh.. Okay. Well i get off in 10minutes." She replied with an awkward look on her face. Glancing at Meredith to make sure she was on the right track. Meredith nodded. "Meet you in the attendings lounge?"  
"Oh okay. Yeah, my shift ends in 10 minutes too. Ill just get Bailey's discharge papers sorted and meet you there." She smiled at Christina. "Oh wait, i cant. I have Sofia."  
"Oh no, dont you worry. Derek and i will take her for the night. You go self-medicate, doctors orders."  
"Why's Bailey being discharged." Yang asked, with a confused expression.  
"Foetus Bailey." Meredith cut in before Arizona could respond with equal confusion.

"Stephanie, wait up." Jackson ran up to fall instep with her. "Do you wanna get a drink at Joe's?"  
"No." She glanced at him and continued on her way.  
"Wait, look i know i've been kinda busy lately, but i've had a lot going on and-"  
"I know, you own the hospital and a bus blew up and you've got fat to suck out of some house wife. I know. Im the last thing you think about. Im your last priority. This is the first time you've even spoken to me since that night at Joe's when you promised to start treating me like i meant something to you. Well i got the message loud and clear, and you know what? It's fine, because i've moved on to somebody who didn't have to wait two weeks to ask me out tonight. So I'm gonna go spend time with him because he actually has time for me." She left him, standing in the middle of the atrium.

As humans, we hate to be blamed for anything.

Christina and Arizona walked into joes and made their way to the bar.  
"So how was your day today?" Arizona politely inquired.  
"It was the worst, i had one surgery. Well one and a half. Its like people just decided to stop eating butter or something."  
"Oh how um- inconsiderate of them?"  
"Yeah, and Owen's still being polite, it's driving me crazy. Anyway what did you do that Meredith prescribed you the tequila treatment?"  
"I uh- pulled a Karev, apparently."  
"You pulled a Karev? Ooh, you win, first round is on me." She gestured to Joe for two shots.

But sometimes we have to pick ourselves up out of the dark empty pit of denial and just take responsibility for our actions.

Derek entered merediths room with Zola on his hip and a wheel chair preceding him.  
"Look it's mommy, we're gonna take mommy home now. Yes we are."  
"Hello Zo-zo." Meredith grinned, taking her daughter into her arms. "Oh Derek, you have to go back up and get Sofia. I told Arizona we'd take her for the night. She needed tequila."  
"What about Callie?" He asked perplexed.  
"Well thats why Arizona needs tequila. She pulled a Karev and then Callie disappeared."  
"So thats why Torres asked for the keys to the trailer yesterday."  
"I thought you got rid of the trailer?"  
"I did, that's what i told her so she said that she'd make another plan."  
"I hope she's okay."  
"Me too. Okay well ill go get Sofia. Ill see you in 5 minutes." He smiled and gave Zola a kiss on the head. "Ill see you now Zo-zo. Sofia's coming for a sleepover."

Because thats how you move forward.

"Hey, I'm taking you out tonight." Alex said, hugging Jo from behind.  
"I cant, I'm on call." She continued to review a chart at the nurses station.  
Alex looked around, "Hey, Murphey? You're on call tonight."  
"What? But i-"  
"That's an order."  
She sighed with irritation and walked away.  
"Alex, you cant do that." Jo laughed, but he ignored her.  
"Come on, I'm gonna show you how you're not just some lazy hospital booty call to me." He took her hand and led her into the night.

Thats how you leave the past behind.


	3. CCB serenade (WhereDidYouSleepLastNight)

3. CCB Serenade (where did you sleep last night)

Hands are our greatest tools. In our line if work, we'd be nothing without them. We use them to repair hearts; to set bones. They can bring pain, pleasure; comfort and healing. Quite frankly, hands are pretty under-rated. We literally use them to work miracles.

Meredith was finally back at work having fully recovered from her c-section/ splenectomy. She walked into the hospital with a rush of twisted euphoria because she would finally get to cut someone again. There was a mother holding her child and speaking exasperatedly with an orderly at the nurses station, making a scene, so Meredith walked up to them to see if she could help.  
"Ma'am is everything- Sofia!" Meredith exclaimed at the sight of the infant. "Why do you have Sofia?"  
"I was baby-sitting for doctor Robbins last night. She said to bring Sofia over here in the morning but i cant find her anywhere and i've got class in an hour!" She was on the verge of tears.  
"Okay, don't worry, my name is Dr. Grey. Just give her to me and i'll take her up to the daycare. I'll tell Dr. Robbins you were here."  
"Oh thank you so so much!" She said handing Sofia over. "Oh, um-" she paused indecisively.  
"What?"  
"Um, Dr. Robbins still has to pay me." She replied sheepishly.  
Meredith rolled her eyes with a sigh, "How much does she owe you?"

Arizona rolled back into consciousness and onto the floor of the on-call room, letting out a pained groan from the throbbing in her head and now newly her shoulder and hip. Giggling erupted from the bunk above her, followed shortly by an almost equal groan of pain.  
"Serves you right for laughing at me." Arizona slurred.  
"Oh come on, its like a common courtesy to laugh at somebody when they fall on their ass."  
Arizona laughed, "that coming from the queen of courtesy." She clutched her head and groaned again. "I need coffee. I need a swimming pool filled with coffee."  
"Oh, i'd swim in that pool." Yang replied  
The on call room door burst open, it was Meredith, "what are you doing on the floor?"  
"She fell off the bed." Came Christina's overly giggly reply.  
"You two went drinking again last night? That's every day for the past week!"  
"Nope, we didn't go on tuesday, i was on call. And hey, we have sorrows to drown!" Arizona pouted.  
"Well next time you drown your sorrows make sure you're there to relieve your baby sitter when she needs to go to class."  
"Oh crap, Sofia!" Panic sobered Arizona and she scrambled to get up from the floor.  
Meredith stepped forward to help her stand, "She's fine, i took her up to day care. She was playing with the blocks when i left."  
"Oh, thank you Meredith." She sat on the bed, relieved.  
"Yeah, well you owe me 70bucks."  
Arizona nodded and retrieved her wallet, "um, can i pay you back later? I seem to have used all my cash at the bar."  
"That's fine." Meredith said and walked out of the door. She stopped just outside and looked at the ceiling, "i've created a monster." She lamented to herself and went to perform rounds.

Christina and Arizona stood staring down from the catwalk waiting for the interns so that they could begin rounds. They were each clutching coffee and leaning over the railing.  
"What are we doing with our lives?" Arizona asked. They were still in the 'i'll never drink again' state of mind.  
"Well from what i can tell, you've become Peg-leg the single lesbian mother." Christina shrugged at her.  
"So, i guess, that makes you the barren spinster, destined to die alone."  
"You're right, what are we doing with our lives." Christina pouted.  
"Oh for gods sake!" Exclaimed Dr. Bailey, causing the two to spin around in surprise.  
"What is the matter with you two? Stop feeling sorry for yourselves, terrible things happen all the time. Get over it. Move on with your lives.  
"You!" She gestured at Dr. Robbins. "Stop acting like you live in a sorority house and go find your wife."  
"Oh i've been looking but-"  
"Bu- no excuses. And you!" She turned her attention to Yang. "Just have a damn baby already. Enough of this nonsense about 'I'm a surgeon, not a mom. and if I'm a mom i cant be a surgeon.' I've got a baby and I'm still a surgeon. She's a surgeon with a baby." Dr. bailey pointed at Dr. Robbins. "Your best friend has two damn babies and she's still cutting people open."  
The two stared at Dr. Bailey sheepishly and she stared pointedly back.  
"Come on, Yang, rounds."  
"I cant, im waiting for Dopey.."  
"Oh, nope. I've got all the interns today. You're on your own." Dr. Robbins interjected.  
"No you're not, you've got me. Now come on."  
They left Arizona standing awkwardly by herself.  
"So you're going to be my intern for today?"  
"I sure as hell am not!" Dr. Bailey threw her a perplexed glare. "Crazy. Im simply coming with you to round on you heart-liver transplant patient."  
"Oh, i thought Mer was doing that surgery with me?"  
"She still is, I'm going to be doing the organ harvest. Baby steps, on my way back into the O.R. Besides she's been my patient for a whole year i owe it to her to at least make sure you two don't screw it up!"

"Oh good, you're all here!" Dr. Robbins grinned at the interns. "Dr. Karev, what are you doing hiding in the back there? Come up here and take the lead." He grimaced before making his way to her side. As they made their way to the patients room, Dr. Robbins briefed them all. "You're all in for something special today, this is only the second documented case of this specific birth defect ever happening in the world!" She grinned at them all just before opening the door and walking into the patient's room.  
"Everyone this is Amanda Grale." Arizona referred to the woman sitting in the arm chair beside the patients bed. She smiled warmly. "And this," she gestured to the little boy in the bed. "Is Dustin! Can anybody tell me why Dustin is here?"  
The hands of the interns shot immediately into the air, Arizona nodded her consent to Dr. Ross.  
"He has supernumerary polymelia of the left arm."  
"Very good Dr. Ross. Now who can tell me how this happens?" She nodded at Dr. Brooks.  
"After fertilization the zygote can split. During gestation one of the embryos can then reabsorb the other. If reabsorption is incomplete it can lead to extra limbs growing out of the patient in the form of shrunken appendages." She made a clawing motion with her hand, imitating her own malformed arm.  
"And how is this different from siamesism?" She paused for a hand. "Dr. Wilson."  
"Siamese twins occur when the zygote's initial split is incomplete, usually resulting in twins conjoined at some point on the body like the head or abdomen but some cases have been documented of the head disappearing during development leading to individuals being born with multiple supernumerary limbs."  
"Brilliant." Arizona grinned. "Dr. Karev, why don't you tell us a little bit about Dustin's case."  
Alex gave her a furtive look and then cleared his throat. "Dustin Grale age 3, born with supernumerary polymelia. Upon examination doctors advised against amputation of the arm as it was so well developed, they couldn't tell which one was the extra. The decision was made to wait a few years in order to determine the stronger arm to give Dustin as much mobility as possible."  
"Correct. As you can see, the proximal appendage hasn't kept up with Dustin's development as well as the other, so today we're going to remove it." She smiled at Mrs. Grale while Alex went about checking Dustin's vitals.  
"But before we do that, we're going to have a little competition." She continued. "This is the last surgery you will be allowed on before we alienate you from the O.R. so that you can study for your intern exam next week, so the winner not only gets the last surgery of your intern year, they also get to be first assist while i remove Dustin's third arm." She beamed at the obvious excitement clouding the interns. "The intern who presents the best game plan for arm removal gets to scrub in." She handed them each copies of Dustin's chart. "You have three hours, go!"  
They ran, wrestling each other to be first out of the door. Leaving the population of the room giggling in their wake.  
"You're not really going to let an intern decide how to treat my son are you?" Mrs. Grale asked.  
"Oh, god no!" Arizona snorted. "Definitely not. Don't worry." She smiled.  
"We'll come back a little later to talk you through the procedure okay?"  
She nodded leaving the doctors free to leave.  
Alex rushed ahead obviously in a hurry to get somewhere.  
"Hey, Karev, wait up." He glared without making full eye contact, shifting around uneasily.  
"What?"  
"Is everything okay? I mean, are you okay? Because you've been acting surlier than usual and i just- it has me concerned."  
"What? Im fine." He sneered and turned on his heel.  
"Ah yeah, No you're not." She informed him as she walked in step beside him. "You see you've been my minion long enough for me to be able to tell the difference between the 'I'm surly because i don't want people to think I'm soft' Alex and the 'I'm surly because something happened and i don't know how to deal with it' Alex."  
"Nothing happened." He pursed his lips. "Will you just drop it already?"  
"Are you having problems with Dr. Wilson? Because Christina said... Well its not really important what she said, but it sounds like maybe you could use some help. You know, somebody to talk to." She nodded sympathetically.  
"You've been talking to Yang about me?" He was angry. "You know what, just because the two of you screwed yourselves out of your own relationships doesn't mean i have too. So why don't you mind your own damn business and leave me out of it."

The interns sat amongst piles of medical journals and case studies in the research library combing through accounts of upper extremity amputations and similar cases which could help them formulate their game plans. As Dustin was only the second documented case of the condition in the world it proved fairly difficult to find any information that was actually helpful to his case. Each one of them was, for all intents and purposes, on their own.  
"Don't even bother Brooks, you might have stolen neuro from me, but this is my arm!"  
Dr. Ross taunted from his crowded corner on the floor after she had gotten up to select another journal from her own pile.  
"Ah, excuse me but paeds is my specialty. You guys can suck it." Interjected Dr. Wilson.  
"Maybe if Karev was choosing, but you're not sleeping with Robbins, you've got no chance." Dr. Murphy cut in.  
"She's not sleeping with Karev either."  
"Stephanie, what the hell!" They all burst out laughing.  
"All's fair in love and surgery." She shrugged.  
"At least i didn't have to make up a guy to get Alex to pay attention to me."  
"Oh come on!"  
"All's fair in love and surgery." Dr. Wilson taunted.  
Dr. Murphy who had been laughing throughout their entire exchange suddenly stopped, "Hey! Where did Brooks disappear too?" They all looked around in a panic.  
"No!" Dr. Ross exclaimed to the result of surrounding glares, before running out to search for her. A few seconds later Dr. Brooks walked in happily chewing on a candy bar and sat back beside her pile.  
"They were out of Bounty." She shrugged in response to the incredulous stares she attributed to her choice in candy. Jo snickered, shaking her head.

"So can i make us a reservation yet or are you gonna make me wait even longer before i get another crack at you?" Lauren whispered seductively into Arizona's ear, pressing her body gently against her back.  
"Um- what part of 'i choose My wife' didn't you understand?" She responded, moving a respectable distance away.  
"Um- its been a week since 'your wife' walked out of this hospital and left you. Its time to open your eyes and get back on-," she grinned cheekily. "Me."  
"Okay, yes, she did leave. But she's just taking time off for her hand to heal, i think." She shook her head to clear it. "But even if she is gone for good it doesn't change anything. It wasn't a choice between you and Callie. It was me being traumatized and acting out. I don't want to be with you and I'm sorry because we probably would have been really good friends if that hadn't happened. But this needs to stop okay, the flirting with me at the nurses station, the touching me inappropriately, the staring down the hallways; it needs to stop because i don't want to be with you." Arizona closed her chart and left to meet the interns.  
She had told them to be on the catwalk at noon exactly so that she could pick the winner, it was five minutes to so she leant against the railing to take some of the pressure off of her legs and looked out of the window. It was the first time all day that she'd been able to take a breath and her thoughts wandered instantly to Callie.  
She had spent the last week searching for her. Arizona called her phone, it went straight to voicemail. She visited every place she could remember having been with her; they were empty. She had called every hospital to see if anyone matching her description had been there. Callie was nowhere. She was gone.  
Arizona heard an increasing crescendo of thumping, she looked up to see the interns sprinting, full-tilt, towards her. They were all sweaty faced and disheveled, clutching medical folders. The five of them screeched to a halt, simultaneously doubling over, panting.  
Dr. Robbins collected all of their proposals and read through them all in turn, scrunching her eyebrows in confusion, nodding appreciatively and laughing condescendingly at certain points through each draft. She had the interns in emotional knots.  
"Okay. Congratulations Dr. Murphy."  
"Yes!"  
"What!?" The others chorused.  
"You will be doing the skin graft from Dustin's thigh for us to mask over the hole in his chest. If i were you id spend the next few hours in the skills lab practicing. The rest of you can get back to studying."  
Dr. Robbins grinned and went off in search of lunch.

Meredith met Yang and Bailey at the patient's room.  
"Hello Mrs. Perkins." Said Dr. Bailey. "This is Dr. Yang and Dr. Grey. They will be performing your heart-liver transplant today."  
They all greeted each other and then Dr. Bailey talked her through the procedure.  
"Why is it that you wont be doing the surgery, Dr. Bailey?" The patient asked.  
"Oh- uh, well i will be harvesting the organs from the donor and um Dr. Yang here will connect the new heart while Dr. Grey does your liver."  
"Yes, but why wont you be doing the liver anymore? I remember when i first came to you, you said that you would do it."  
"Yes, i-" Dr. Bailey stammered  
"I just came off maternity leave," Dr. Grey jumped in. "Dr. Bailey decided to give me this surgery as a present. Usually our schedules are empty when we come off of any leave and Dr. Bailey is a busy woman these days with her genome lab, so we're doing each other a favour."  
"Oh a baby. Oh yes i understand! How lovely. I recently became a mother you know. Just last year, a few weeks after i was first diagnosed with liver failure." Mrs Perkins crooned.  
"You were pregnant at the time? Is somebody helping you raise the baby?"  
"Oh no, no. He's 22 years old." Her admission was met by a myriad of confused expressions.  
"Um 22?" Meredith asked.  
Mrs Perkins laughed, "In my youth i was a flight attendant. I flew all over the world and visited every country you could think of. Im passionate about travel." She gave them a crinkled smile. "I was also quite passionate about sampling the local cuisine, if you know what i mean." She grinned cheekily. "One day i fell pregnant. I was devastated because i hadn't finished seeing the world. There were still so many places to go. So i decided to give him up for adoption. I sacrificed him for my passion. It was heart breaking at first but i knew it was better for the both of us, i wasn't cut out to be a mom. So i gave him up to a lovey family and continued seeing the world. I was so happy for so many years until i started to get sick. So i settled down and met a nice man, bless his heart. One day out of the blue Jean comes to see me, tells me that I'm his mother. This passed year has been the favourite of my life, getting to know my son." She held her hands over her heart with a loving expression.  
"Would you choose to do it differently, if you could go back and keep him?"  
"You know, i don't think i would. We both got to be happy. He was raised by a lovely family and turned into a wonderful young man. And his parents, i gave them a child. I believe i did the right thing."  
"You did mom." Jean had just arrived, he was leaning against the doorframe.  
"Oh my boy, come here so i can show you off to these doctors."  
He laughed and walked in, giving his mom a kiss before staring sheepishly at the room.  
Meredith's pager went off, "oh thats the E.R. It was lovely to meet you." She nodded at Jean. "I'll see the rest of you in the O.R." She ran out.  
"We'd best be off too, leave you two to have some alone time before the surgery. If you need anything just have the nurse page me, okay."  
They walked out of the room  
"You see, she was happy with her life having what she wanted despite what she sacrificed to get it." Dr. Yang said, referring to their earlier discussion about having a baby.  
"Yeah i guess the question for you is whether you want a career in surgery or a life with Owen." Dr. Bailey responded, instantly shutting her up.

Dr. Karev was leaning on the nurses station, staring into a patients room when Dr. Yang stopped next to him to talk to an orderly.  
"What are you looking at?" She asked him once she was done.  
"Kid with three arms."  
"Woah, three arms!" She craned her neck trying to catch a glimpse  
"You cant see it, Robbins and Murphy already removed it."  
"Oh." Yang was disappointed. "How come you didn't take it off?"  
"I've been trying avoid Robbins."  
"Why?"  
"Torres said-"  
"You spoke to Callie?"  
"What? No, it was before she disappeared."  
"Oh." She pouted again. "Where do you think she went?"  
"I have no idea." He thought for a second. "Maybe Robbins killed her."  
"You know that makes perfect sense. Nobody's that perky, shes has to be a murderer!" Yang exclaimed. "Ooh do you think she's drinking with me and acting sad for an alibi?"  
"You're probably her next victim."  
Christina laughed, "no way, you cut off her leg and let her believe it was Callie for half a year. You're definitely next."  
"Whatever." He sneered as Robbins walked out of Dustin's room and made towards them.  
"Hey Christina, my shifts over do you wanna come over to mine for a drink?"  
"Nah, I'm on call, but i think Bailey's right- we're becoming alcoholics."  
"Oh."  
"Yeah, anyway, I'm gonna go check on my transplant patient." And she loped off leaving Karev and Robbins together.  
Arizona tried to cut the tension with her usual go-to of babbling.  
"So his surgery went really well. I mean, except for when the intern nicked his auxiliary vein. That was pretty bad. But i got it under control, i threw a mesh wrap in and he's fine. Now we just have to wait for the graft to heal and then we should be able to send him home in a few weeks."  
She grinned at Alex, but he didn't respond.  
"You know Alex, nobody blames you for your past. Quite frankly you turned out really well despite all that you've been through. I think you're a sucker for an underdog because of your past. Because you don't want anyone else to have to do it alone like you did. And i think that opens you up to a little more disappointment than the rest of us. You've done some pretty great things and helped an awful lot of people. You deserve to be happy and you don't have to get there on your own either. I just thought you should know that. Im sorry if i crossed a line this morning, i just wanted you to know that I'm here if you ever need a hand." She made to leave.  
"Dr. Robbins wait-" he hesitated but she waited politely for him to gather himself. "I- you're right, i've been an ass lately and i pretty huge moron evidently and I'm sorry its just that Dr. Torres... Before she left... She said that you were probably going to make my life hell now that you know that i was the one who, you know... Your leg."  
Arizona took a second to compile a response, "it doesn't matter." She shook her head. "I don't care that it was you. Dr. Weaver, my therapist, she says that after the accident i needed something to blame, to channel all of my traumatized energy into, and it just happened to be Callie. I made a real mess of things. Im, uh, learning how to deal with it now but i don't blame you for that either Karev." She nodded and made her way off the the attendings lounge.

The interns sat in the bar lamenting their failed day, throwing back shots and hoping the next one would bring on the epiphany that would solve their lives.  
"Im never going to have sex again." Said Jo.  
"Im gonna die alone." Remarked Stephanie.  
"Im the dud that nobody wants on their service." Shane sighed.  
"I cant even amputate an arm without something going wrong." Lea added.  
They all turned to look at Heather, expectantly. "Oh, um- Dr. Shepard thinks I'm weird?"  
"You are weird." They all agreed.  
"Whats the deal with you and Karev anyway?" Lea asked  
"I was put off because he'd slept with all of you so i said we should wait until it felt special and now its just... Awkward."  
"Well why don't you just go have sex now?" Heather asked.  
"Yeah. You know what, thats a great idea!" She slammed down another shot and swaggered out in search of Alex back at the hospital.  
"You know, if you're lonely, im always available." Ross said to Stephanie.  
"Alternatively there's a whole bar full of available men." Lea interjected.  
"Great my love life is a dud too."  
"Look on the bright side," Heather mused. "At least you'll go to heaven if that no sex before marriage thing is true." Shane shook his head and threw back another of his own shots.  
"What about my problem?" Lea asked.  
"Oh you're screwed. Who forgets to tie off a vein before cutting it?"  
"I didn't forget to tie it off! I just nicked it while i was going through the muscle."  
The three shook their heads at her and they all carried on drinking.

Yang was on call that night but Meredith and Bailey had a point anyway, Arizona needed to cut down on the drinking, so she went home and spent time with her daughter at the end of her shift. The two ate spaghetti and watched the Teletubbies before they both turned in for the night.  
Arizona woke up to her pager going off. It was 5am, an hour before she usually got up for work. It was 911 so she got up and got ready as quickly as possible. she had been staying in Callie's apartment since she had disappeared because it was more familiar for Sofia, she was still across the road from the hospital so she was there in 20 minutes with Sofia on her hip. Alex Karev met her just as she walked into the lobby.  
"Just give me 5 minutes to change into some scrubs, Karev. You take Sofia up to the daycare for me please, tell them ill be up there once my emergent case is sorted out." She handed her to the nurse with a thankful smile.  
"No, Dr. Robbins, you don't need scrubs." Putting his hand on her shoulder.  
"What do you mean? You paged me 911, did you lose the patient?" She inquired with worry.  
"No. No, the patient's still alive. Its just- they aren't your patient." His gaze was guarded and sympathetic.  
"Then why did you page me here, Karev?" He didn't answer. "It's Callie isn't it? They found Callie."  
He nodded. "Yeah"  
"Where is she?" Arizona was on the verge of panic.  
Alex shook his head.  
"Dammit Karev you said she was still alive, dont you dare shake your head at me! Tell me where the hell she is."  
"She's in surgery." He said hollowly  
"Okay, which O.R?" She made for the elevator but Alex body blocked her.  
"I cant let you see her."  
"What? She's my wife, i have a right to see her. Why the hell did you page me if you weren't going to let me see her?"  
"I thought you had a right to know how she was. Especially since this is kinda your fault."  
"My fault!? You better get out of my way Karev or i swear to god ill bet the crap out of you."  
"Dr. Robbins!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked intently into her eyes. She relaxed enough to encourage him to continue. "She was found unconscious in Lake View Cemetery."  
"Thats where Mark is buried."  
"Yeah, she was next to his headstone with and empty bottle of booze beside her. The grounds keeper found her. Said he liked to water the grass before the sun came out, he'd seen people asleep on headstones before so he went to wake her up and she didn't respond. He figured she was just really drunk so he called an ambulance."  
"Alcohol poisoning?" She asked but Alex shook his head.  
"When she came in, Yang diagnosed her with Stress-induced Cardiomyopathy. She's busy installing a balloon pump right now."  
"Br- broken heart syndrome?" Arizona burst out laughing because that was just so ridiculous but her laughter soon turned hysterical and she collapsed into Karev's arms, in tears. "Oh god it is my fault."

We could use our hands to put the body back together piece by piece if we wanted to but sometimes it isn't our bodies that have fallen apart. Sometimes people die despite the best odds and our best efforts simply because deep down they've just given up. And sometimes without that hand there to help us, there's no other way out of that deep black hole our lives have become.


	4. Timelines

4. Timelines

The battle between heart and brain is legendary. The internal schizophrenia present inside each one of us. Logic versus desire. Medically speaking the heart has nothing to do with it, it just sits in our chests squirting blood around. In reality it's all on the brain, the left side fighting with the right side. It cant make its self up so it blames desire on the heart in order to look good whenever logical wins true. Sometimes the fighting between the two can drive us mad.

A few hours had passed since Arizona had found out about Callie. She had gone home, fed and dressed Sofia and informed Dr. Hunt the she would be taking the day off to be with her wife. She was going to be there when she woke up, but Callie was still in surgery, so she sat in the cafeteria with a cup of coffee clasped in both hands, staring blankly at the situation before her. She just needed to tell Callie that she was going to therapy now and that she was getting better. She would tell her how she was working through the blame and that she was ready to begin being the person Callie needed her to be. Just like Meredith said. She was learning to love Callie the way she deserved to be loved.

Yang walked into the cafeteria, still wearing her scrub cap and surgical gown, and made a bee-line for Arizona.

"How is she?" Arizona said expectantly, her face a mask of quiet desperation.

"She's going to be just fine. We got to her within the golden hour. They're taking her up to recovery right now. The ventricular tear was relatively small, i put in a balloon pump to take some of the strain off of the muscle and then i grafted over the hole. In and out, no complications."

"Oh thank god." Arizona exhaled. "Thank you Christina, for saving her."

Christina nodded in acknowledgement before turning her attention to her buzzing pager. "Oh its the pit, i've gotta go. You can go up and see her."

Christina ran through the first floor, discarding her blue surgical gown for the yellow of trauma as she neared the E.R. doors.

She arrived as the EMT's wheeled the patient in, a boy running beside them.

The paramedic relayed the case immediately, "male, late 30's. Unresponsive in the field, presents with ventricular fibrillation and a uneven pupils."

Yang nodded, her stethoscope to his chest, "take him straight to the O.R, have them prep for an emergency thoracotomy and craniotomy. Page Dr. Shepard, have him meet me down there and page Dr. Hunt, tell him Paul Dawson is back." She ordered a nurse.

The patient was taken away immediately.

Christina then turned her attention to the scared boy in front of her, "Ethan, can you tell me what happened to your dad?"

"He- he had a headache so he went to have a nap. And then i couldn't wake him up. He wouldn't wake up. I thought you fixed him!" He pleaded.

"We're going to do our best to find out what happened, okay? Can you tell me if he took any medicine?"

"He has lots of pills. He's been taking all the medicine the doctor gave him."

"Okay and what about before his nap. Did he take anything for his headache, like aspirin?"

Ethan nodded, "He said it wasn't working. He wanted to sleep it off."

"How much did he take?"

"A lot, he kept having more."

"Okay Ethan, im going to leave you with this nurse. I want you to stay with her until Dr. Hunt comes, okay?" He nodded. She ran to the O.R.

"You paged?" Dr. Avery asked April, who was sitting behind the E.R. desk working on the computer and talking to an upset looking boy with freckles and mid-length russet hair. She looked up and smiled, "Oh hey, Jackson. Bed 3." Before continuing her conversation with the boy.

He walked over to the bed and pulled back the curtain to reveal a man in a business suit with a face shining bright red and peeling skin. There was a dark stain spread down the front of his shirt and tears in his eyes. Dr. Avery checked the chart for the patients name, "Mr... Williams. My name is Dr. Avery, can you tell me what happened?"

The patient laughed masochistically before wincing at the pain of moving his face and handed Jackson the phone. "Press play." He said through immobile lips referring to the Youtube video loaded on the device.

Jackson gave the man a questioning look before following his instructions.

The video started out with two men, one stocky and slightly overweight with a blonde comb-over and the other, tall with dark skin and a fuzzy looking shirt. They were looking into an office break room, sniggering at a man who was making himself a cup of coffee. "That's our boss." The first man narrated. "He's such a prick walking around like he's the king just because daddy gave him the keys to the castle."

"Yeah." The second man agreed. "So we're going to bring him down a peg, show him that the peasants are the ones that really run the show."

"Nepotism aint gonna give you respect, buddy."

They continued sniggering as the second man put the head of his gorilla costume on and the first man took out what appeared to be a miniature stick of dynamite, about an inch in length and put it into the gorilla's hand.

"Waterproof fuse." He told the camera with a grin. "Ready?" He asked is friend.

The gorilla nodded and the other man lit the fuse. The gorilla ran off into the break room and did a crazy dance, completely distracting the boss from the coffee in his hands, as he dropped the tiny explosive into it. The gorilla ran off leaving the boss shaking his head, a slight grin on his face. He rose his cup to his lips just as the bomb went off, showering his face and neck in scalding hot coffee. He let out a whimpering shriek and clutched his face as the man wielding the camera collapsed into hysterical laughter and the video ended.

Jackson gaped in shock at his patient as he handed his phone back to him.

"Your employees did this too you?"

The man nodded.

Callie came to after her surgery, head pounding and light sensitive. She had a raging hangover. "Man, how did i get back to the hotel?" She thought to herself.

She felt a tickle on her face, and moved to wipe her hand down her mouth. "What is that?" She thought, feeling the O2 tube. "And that!?" In response to the pulse monitor on her finger. Carefully she opened her eyes, slowly conditioning them to the light in the room. As she took it all in she realized where she was before awaking to some pressure on her hand. Somebody was holding it.

"Arizona?"

She stirred before jerking her head up from where it rested in her other hand and gazed at Callie with relief. Callie was very pale, she looked like she had lost some weight and there were deep shadows underneath her eyes.

"Callie." She smiled. "How are you feeling? Can i get you some water?" She gave Callie's hand a squeeze but Callie removed it from her grip immediately.

"Get out." She said through shallow breaths.

"What?" Heartbreak was written on Arizona's face.

"I said get out." She dragged her glaring eyes up to meet her wife's. "Now."

"No, Callie I'm so-" She shook her head.

"Get out." Callie repeated with as much volume her lacking lungs could muster.

With tears in her eyes Arizona nodded and left.

Arizona walked straight into Meredith on her way to find somewhere private to cry. "Oh I'm sorry Meredith. Excuse me." Touching her shoulder to walk past, but Meredith caught her arm.

"Woah Arizona, i heard about Callie. How is she?"

"Awake." Arizona lost her control, dropping her head onto Meredith's shoulder.

"Tequila?"

"Uh huh."

"Sofia's in day care?"

"Yes." She sniffed.

"Okay. Let me just send Derek a message to tell him where I'm going."

"It's the middle of the day, don't you have patients?"

"Nope, one of the perks of just coming off maternity leave, nobody here needs me right now."

"Okay."

They walked across the road to Joe's.

Dr. Shepard and Yang were in the O.R. working on Ethan's father, they had managed to get him into a stable condition and were going about repairing the damage in his heart and brain.

"Doctor Shepard, there's a message from doctor Grey, she says she's going to Joe's with doctor Robbins but not to worry, she wont be drinking."

"Thank you nurse." He gave her a nod and transferred his attention to Christina, "Meredith tell's me you've been spending a lot of time with Dr. Robbins." Derek said.

"I think she's jealous."

"It's weird, i never saw myself getting along with Perky-Sue, but she's been a pretty good substitute Meredith. You know she didn't want kids either?"

"Oh really? But she's a paeds surgeon, she's supposed to love kids."

"Yeah i know, she did it for Callie." She took a thoughtful breath. "Owen wanted to adopt this guy's kid, back when we thought he'd never wake up."

"He did?"

"That was when i realised that i was holding him back, so i let him go."

"Why didn't you get back together when he woke up and Ethan didn't need a new dad anymore?"

"Owen still wants kids."

"You know, having a ten year old isn't as bad as having a zero year old like Meredith and I. He's already potty trained, he can dress and feed himself. He's at least three years away from puberty and wanting nothing to do with you anyway and then he'll turn eighteen and go to college."

"Yeah." Christina agreed, tentatively.

"And they do say that kids are like tiny drunk people. We both know how much you love being drunk."

"Yeah but i cant be drunk if I'm looking after a kid. And ill have to be quiet during sex." She made a horrified face. "And i'll have to feed it. I can barely feed myself."

Derek laughed, "i understand Owen cooks." Their eyes met briefly. "Do the thing that scares you Yang."

"Pressures dropping." The scrub nurse interjected.

"What happened?" Dr. Yang asked.

"He's stroked out. Give me a second to get this under control." Dr. Shepard replied.

Richard Weber was in his home doing a session of physical therapy with his trainer. He was able to walk again for brief periods with the use of a cane, but there was still residual nerve damage to the right side of his body, especially his right arm. His trainer had the idea of using one of those wire contraptions, the ones where you guide a loop around the pattern without the wires touching, to help Richard with his dexterity. It wasn't going very well. The occasional tremour in his arm caused him to complete the circuit of the device and the buzzer continually went off signaling his failure.

The doorbell rang his salvation and he immediately abandoned his game in order to challenge himself with the task answering the door. The bell rang twice more, not highlighting the visitors impatience but instead Richards slow pace. When he finally reached the door, he was panting and there was a light sheen of sweat on his brow.

"Jackson. What a pleasant surprise. How are you, son?"

"I'm fine. How are you? I see you're walking."

"Yes, I'm doing well. It's good."

The two men smiled politely at each other.

"Well come in, come in." Richard ushered him through the door. "What brings you by son?"

Jackson told him the story of his patient from that day, emphasizing how they hated the man for being given his leadership. Richard listened attentively, nodding as Jackson talked.

"And you think that something similar is likely to happen to you?" Richard asked at the end of the story.

"Well I'm pretty certain the staff feel similarly about me. I thought maybe you could help me earn their respect, show them i have what it take to lead them."

"You came to the right place, Jackson, but these lessons i have to teach you wont be easy. You're going to have to learn the difference between a colleague and a leader, and think of your people less as your friends and more as your team. Can you do that?"

"Well i-."

"Can you do it, son, because if you cant theres no point in you being here."

"I can. I can do it, I'm ready."

"Okay then. Here's your problem: you're young, not to mention you haven't been working at that hospital for as long as someone like say Meredith Grey. You also don't have as many friends on your side, you need a General. Someone who they all fear but who ultimately answers to you. You need Bailey. Win Bailey, Jackson, and you'll win them all."

"Yes, of course. Win Bailey!" Jackson agreed.

"But thats not enough."

"It's not?"

"No you need a keystone, to lock it all in place. All the rest of them have one, Karev and his African kids, Yang's a heart genius, Meredith practically cured diabetes with her mothers talent. You need an edge Avery. Show them greatness."

"Show them greatness." Jackson repeated.

They nodded at each other with a mad gleam in their eyes.

"Hey, Karev." Callie called from her room as she saw him walking past. She gesticulated eagerly for him to come over.

"I've got patients Torres, what do you want?"

"Why the hell am i in here?"

"What? Hasn't anyone been here to talk to you yet?" He was perplexed. "Robbins didn't come?"

"Yeah, i kicked her out." She said, quickly changing the subject. "I'm kinda freaking out here Karev, what happened to me?"

"Why don't you start with where the hell you've been for the past week and then maybe i can give you a better answer?"

"Ugh, does it even matter?"

"Yeah it kinda does when you're found unconscious in a cemetery with Broken Heart Syndrome of all things."

Callie laughed, "You're joking right. That's something that happens to 80 year old widows, n-not rock star surgeons. Th-that... That doesn't happen. Not to me. Karev?"

He stared at her with pointed sympathy while she took it in.

"Alex?" She waited a little longer for him to tell her he was joking but he just stayed silent. "Oh my god. That's so embarrassing!" She looked mortified.

"Callie, where were you?" The concern shone through Alex's voice.

"I- i was drunk. I booked a hotel room and i drank, that's it."

"Were you ever planning on coming back?"

"Oh i tried, it was like this vicious cycle. I'd wake up with a hangover thinking 'okay time to go back, you've had your time off. You can do this.' And i'd get dressed and drive all the way here. But i- i just couldn't get out of the car. I'd sit and think about having to see Arizona and those five months after the crash and how it killed me just a little more everyday, how vicious she was. The way her eyes were just empty and hateful... It was just so exhausting to have to think about having to go through that all again." She raised her eyebrows accentuating her point. "So i would start the car up again and drive back to the hotel and then i would sit in the bar for the rest of the day just drinking... And crying. And i'd wake up the next day and do it all over again."

"How'd you end up in a cemetery?"

"I was visiting Mark. I go see him sometimes. I remember speaking to him though, last night, I saw him so clearly. I told him how tired i was of... just everything, and he held me. He told me to close my eyes, that everything would be okay. And then i woke up. Here." Her voice took on and edge of disgust. "With Arizona holding my hand and smiling down at me, like... like we weren't broken." Callie's heart rate was rapid now, each pulse echoing through the room. A part of her had forgotten that Karev was even there.

He put his hand on her shoulder and snapped her out of her reverie, "Dude, take a deep breath. Come on, Callie, in and out," he breathed with her. "There you go. You want me to give you something to help you sleep? You look like you need it."

"Yeah, thanks Karev." All the energy she seemed to have had a few minutes ago, was gone.

Christina had been in the O.R. for hours with Dr. Shepard operating on Paul Dawson. The surgery was over now they went out to talk to Owen, Nancy and Ethan in the waiting room.

"Mrs Dawson," Dr. Shepard addressed her. "Paul came in with a severe brain bleed due to the aspirin he had been taking. This also put a lot of pressure on his heart. Dr. Yang and i did our very best to stabilize his heart and brain but he suffered a massive stroke during the surgery and unfortunately we were unable to revive him. I'm very sorry for your loss."

Ethan and Nancy collapsed into each other, broken by their mutual sorrow. Owen had his arm around Ethan, he tried to keep a stoic face but his emotions got the better of him. He excused himself and fled. Christina ran after him, "Owen." She called but he ignored her until he reached the on-call room, collapsing on the bed with his head in his hands. Christina put her arm around him.

"Owen I'm so sorry. We did everything we could."

"I know. I know you did. But Ethan..." He hesitated through a lump in his throat. "Now he's all on his own."

"No. He's not." Christina swallowed.

"Of course he is. Nancy cant look after him, she's going to hand him over to Social Services.

"No, you... we- we're going to take him."

Owen looked up, shocked.

"You and i. We'll adopt him." She continued, nodding.

"But- you.. I" he stuttered.

"I know, but i've been doing some thinking and i choose a life with you over a career in surgery. Well you know, I'm not going to quit being a surgeon, but I can sacrifice a few hours a day to let you be a dad."

Owen's face radiated joy and he caught Christina in a passionate kiss letting her feel ever bit of gratitude inside of him.

"Hello, Mr. Williams." Jackson said as he walked into the patient's room. The man had pressure dressings over his face, neck and hand, he looked as if he was wearing a white balaclava.

"Hey Doc."

"Easier to talk now with some morphine hey." Jackson smiled as he checked the man's vitals.

"Oh yeah, morphine makes everything better."

"Listen, i know how you can win your staff over. Make them fall in behind you." Jackson whispered conspicuously.

"Oh no. Thanks Dr. Avery, but if today has taught me anything its that life's to short to take everybody else's shit. Im quitting that job and moving to Italy. Im going to learn how to make gelato and fall in love. Screw winning over a bunch of bastards, I'm going to be happy."

Jackson had an inspired look on his face, he smiled at the man. "Well good for you, Mr. Williams. I really hope that works out for you."

"Thanks doc."

Arizona's pager went off, it was Callie. She ran straight to her room.

"Hey, you paged." She hid her nerves behind a tentative smile.

"Yeah, come sit with me for a second." Callie smiled back, washing a wave of relief over Arizona. She perched herself on the side on the bed, matching Callie's intent gaze. "You are so gorgeous." Callie cupped Arizona's face with her right hand. "Honestly you are probably the most beautiful person i have ever met," she cocked her head in consideration. "but i might be biased by how ridiculously much i love you."

"Callie, i lo-"

"Shh, im not finished." She said gently. "I love you so much that every time you enter a room i still get butterflies. I love you so much that when you aren't around i look for you everywhere without even noticing I'm doing it. You occupy my every thought, my every desire. So i have something for you, to show you exactly how i feel."

"Oh Callie, you didnt have to-"

"Close your eyes."

Arizona nodded and obeyed.

Callie pulled Arizona's face towards her own, placing a soft but passionate kiss on her lips while her other hand placed an object into Arizona's.

Callie pulled away, holding Arizona's gaze. "I love you so much, it almost killed me to lose you."

Arizona smile faded as she looked down at the object Callie had just given her, "your wedding ring?"

"Do you remember how, when you came back from Africa, i told you that i was certain that if i let you back into my life that you would hurt me again? It almost killed me to lose you, I'm not giving you another chance to get it right."

They say that it takes a lot of bravery to follow your heart, putting it all out there regardless of the risk of failure; and it's true, sometimes it takes every ounce of courage we have. But sometimes it takes just as much courage to follow your mind, to do the smart thing despite how loudly the rest of you might be screaming in disagreement.


	5. Breathe in

5. Breathe in

Sleeping is one of the most mysterious things we do. For hours at a time we just shut down completely; out for the count. They say that dreams show us how we really feel, painting obscure pictures with our emotions- reminding us who we are. The way a person sleeps can tell us a lot about them, the position they choose, how often they do it; whether they grind their teeth or not. Some people like to sleep, other people can barely nail down a few hours a night. There are those that have dedicated their whole lives to understanding sleep, they're called Somnologists, but sometimes even they don't have all the answers.

#

Monday

Dr. Bailey sat in the attending's lounge filling in some paper work in the time she had before rounds.  
"There had better be something on my face." She responded to Dr. Avery's staring without looking up.  
"Oh, no. Your face is perfect." He got up from the couch and sat in the chair beside her at the table. "Dr. Bailey are you enjoying your research lab? Do you have enough funding? Because you know, if you need anything we can always work something out. Make sure all your needs are taken care of." He batted his eyelashes at her while she stared back incredulously.  
"Oh i know you are not flirting with a married woman Dr. Avery. Because if you were, in fact, flirting with a married woman i might have to show you why people used to call me the Nazi. Now I don't think that's something you ever want to find out, wouldn't you agree, Dr. Avery?" Her every word was soaked through with intimidation.  
His posture immediately stiffened in fear, "Yes ma'am, Dr. Bailey. I would never flirt with- uh, i mean i would; you're a very attractive woman but um-"  
"Just get to the point!" She exclaimed.  
"You're intimidating."  
"Oh for god's sake."  
"No, that's my point. People respect you, you're intimidating. I need that. I need a lieutenant to help me rally the people behind me."  
"Now why in the hell would i want to do that?"  
"Well the Chief said-"  
"Oh 'the Chief said'." Dr. Bailey mocked. "And what else did 'the Chief' say?"  
"He said to um, 'show them my greatness.'"  
"Well go on then." She said expectantly.  
"Excuse me?"  
"Show me this greatness."  
"Oh! Well i uh, i haven't- i mean i've been putting a plan together but-"  
"So why are you sitting here staring at me when you've still got greatness to go and find? It ain't on my face, i've got my own greatness on my face. Go find your own greatness!" She chased him away while she mumbled angrily after him. "Boy thinks i have his greatness hiding up my nose..."

#

It was 11am and the day was slow, Dr. Robbins leant against the railing on the catwalk, seemingly staring out of the glass face of the hospital, but her gaze was more closely focused on the delicate silver band turning around in her fingers.  
"Mm coffee." Christina said as she pulled up beside Arizona.  
"Oh thanks." She replied turning to take a cup from Christina, they shared an awkward glance.  
"Oh, sorry. I didn't get any for you." Christina grimaced. "Are we doing that now?"  
"I guess not." Arizona laughed.  
They entertained a moment of silence, sipping on coffee and fiddling respectively.  
"What's that?" Christina indicated Arizona's hands.  
"Oh. It's uh-" her eyes flooded. "Callie gave her ring back, she ended things." her voice broke at the end.  
"Well don't expect me to adopt your kid too."  
Arizona looked utterly confused for a second before realization dawned on her and her mouth dropped open in excitement, "You're adopting a baby!?"  
"No! No, we're adopting a ten year old. And independent, can-feed-and-clothe-himself, ten year old."  
"Pfft independent except for all the help he'll need with school work."  
"I never needed any help with my school work."  
"And all the support he'll need because both of his parents are gone?",  
"That's what therapists are for."  
"He'll want to have his friends over, and have parties at your house. Ooh maybe he'll get somebody pregnant and then you will have a baby!"  
Christina looked horrified, "now i see why Callie broke up with you." She joked, but Arizona's face fell and then tears returned to her eyes. "Oh sorry, too soon?" Christina grimaced again.  
"Yeah. Too soon." Arizona replied, her gaze having returned to the ring she held.  
"Owen cheated on me because i aborted his baby." Arizona looked up to watch Christina speak. "So i get it, you cheated on Callie because she cut off your leg. But really, you didn't, and Owen didn't. Those are just the reasons we use to explain it all. It took me a long time to get over what he did and we went to therapy and we yelled for weeks because we were missing something. There was this one thing that didn't add up the whole time. You see the real reason why he did it was because we got married too soon. Gary Clarke came and i was traumatized and we just jumped into married life because we wanted things to feel happy and normal. But it was too soon. I hadn't healed yet and we weren't there yet, we cut so many corners trying to be whole that our foundation, i mean it could only crumble. You cant just avoid the hard stuff because it'll come for you one way or another. I think you tried to heal too fast too."  
"So how do i fix this?"  
"You have to go back to where it all went wrong. Face the demons you've been running from. Take it all one day at a time and find your way home."  
"Christina i-"  
"No. Nope, nope. Now is when we forget that i ever said anything deep or helpful. This conversation never happened. I cut hearts up, i don't feel with them." She crinkled her nose in disgust.  
Arizona chuckled, "okay."  
Christina felt increasingly more awkward so she decided to change the subject.  
"So, how did you get over the kid thing?"  
"What do you mean?"  
"Well you never wanted them right and then suddenly! a child. How did you deal with it?"  
"Oh well i just-" she took a second to gather her thoughts. "Sofia has Callie's eyes. I looked at her and i saw a tiny Callie. I fell in love. There wasn't really anything to get over in the end, she was perfect."  
Christina sneered, "That's not helpful at all."  
Arizona looked at her sympathetically, "Well, what's he like?"  
"Um, I think he likes soccer?"  
"Why don't you start with getting to know him?" Arizona laughed. "You never know, you might find you like him." She slouched back down over the railing.  
"Eugh, i need a drink." Christina frowned.  
"Yeah." Arizona raised her eyebrows, with a nod to express her own need for a drink. "Wait a second!" Her head snapped up.  
"Are you going to get tequila?" Christina called as Arizona all but ran to the elevators.  
"No. Getting Sofia!" Arizona flashed a grin back at her friend but she just frowned perplexedly after her.

#

"Mommy!" Sofia grinned and reached forward at the sight of Callie.  
"Hey baby girl." Callie's face lit up too as she took her daughter into her arms.  
"Really, you bring my child so that i cant make you leave? So you can keep me hostage while you- what? Spin some crap about how you're 'so sorry' and how you're going to spend the rest of your life 'earning my forgiveness because you just love me so much'. Is that what you're here to do?" She addressed Arizona, keeping the same happy tone of voice so as not to upset Sofia.  
"Actually i thought the two of you needed some quality time together seen as you haven't seen each other in a little while."  
"Oh because you didn't disappear for a week before I did?"  
"I didn't come here to blame you, Callie."  
"Oh, really? What changed?" She replied sarcastically.  
"I've been seeing Dr. Weaver, she's a therapist here at the hospital. She's been helping me see things more clearly. So i came here now to try and help you see a little more clearly too. I thought Sofia might remind you that the three of us, we're a family, whether it's legal or not and to tell you that I'm prepared to fight for this thing, whatever it takes because i love you. So please can we just talk about this?"  
"Oh you love me? You're going to fight for me? Where were you when i was fighting for almost a year trying to deal with losing Mark and having nobody to talk to. Nobody on my side. Where were you when i stood politely by letting you rip me open while i waited for you to heal enough so that you might resemble my wife again. Where were you when i was turning myself inside out to try and help you deal with everything while still raising my daughter all on my own at the same time? When i was sleeping in my dead best friend's bed every night to give you the space that you asked for? Where were you Arizona? Oh thats right. You were in an on-call room screwing a woman you'd met the day before while it took me five months to get you comfortable enough to even kiss me again." Callie realized she was alarming Sofia and regained control of her tone. Arizona noted how bad her idea to bring the infant here actually was. "Thats where you were Arizona. While i was fighting for us, that's where you were. So I think I'm seeing pretty damn clearly, a hell of a lot more clearly than i was seeing a month ago."  
"Don't tell me that it's better off this way." Arizona pled.  
"Honestly, can you make me believe that i shouldn't leave you?" Callie waited a few seconds before continuing. "Just go, i'll have a nurse fetch Sofia when i get tired."

#

"Hey Karev, what have you got?" Dr. Robbins asked.  
"Just got paged for a consult in the pit but, other than that, nothing. Today sucks."  
"I've got an umbilical hernia in an hour, do you want to swap?"  
"You're giving up surgery for a consult. What gives?"  
"Nevermind, do you want the surgery or not?" She replied curtly.  
"Yeah. Yeah, fine i'll take it. The consult's in trauma 2." He said, watching her furtively as he turned to walk away.  
"Great, thanks Alex." She grinned.

"You paged for a paeds consult?" Dr. Robbins smiled at Dr. Kepner as she walked into the room.  
"Oh, i paged Dr. Karev."  
"Is there something wrong with me?" She asked with faux brightness.  
"Oh, no!" April replied quickly, looking horrified with herself. "No. I just didn't think the patient was emergent enough to attract your attention. I mean he's basically fine."  
"Yeah i'm fine." The teenage boy piped up. He was fully alert and seemed wholly uninjured apart from one or two laceration on his arm and forehead, but every doctor knows better than to assume that looking good on the outside meant that you were okay on the inside.  
Arizona accessed his chart and gave it a quick once over before speaking to him.  
"Ryan, my name is Dr. Robbins. Im the head of paediatric surgery. Can you tell me what happened?"  
"He blew himself up is what happened!" Screeched an angry voice. Dr. Robbins turned to see an enraged woman enter the room, slipping her cellphone back into her handbag. She was slightly over-weight with a blotchy face and wild hair. "Your father is ready to murder you, i might just help him. Of all the stupid, irresponsible, juvenile things to do!"  
"Excuse me, Ma'am." Dr. Robbins introduced herself again. "Can i ask you to go to the waiting area while we examine your son? I'll have somebody come out and speak to you once I have any information." She gave the woman a bright smile.  
"Fine. Fine. Actually i think i'll go to the cafeteria. I need something made of sugar."  
"Thank you." Ryan said once his mother was out of ear shot.  
Dr. Robbins winked at him. "So, you blew yourself up, huh?  
"It was awesome!" He enthused. "I was just standing a little too close and then when my mom saw the cuts on my arm she freaked out and called an ambulance. Really i'm fine."  
Dr. Robbins continued to question him as she began her examination. "Tell me about the actual bomb."  
"I found the plans on the internet. I just wanted to make something to prank my friends but i thought i'd try it out a few times first to make sure it'd work right." He stopped to cough for a few seconds. "The first one was a dud. It kinda just melted and let of a bunch of gross black smoke. So i decided to try make a chlorine bomb instead. I was wearing goggles and gloves for safety and everything. It worked perfectly: boom!" He shouted, acting the explosion out with his hands. "It was so epic!"  
"Well as your doctor, Ryan, I'm going to have to advise that you not to make anymore bombs. But as a scientist, that does sound pretty cool." She added as an aside. "Dr. Kepner's right, you do seem fine. I'm a little bit worried about that cough you have but your chest scans seem normal so i'm just going to keep you overnight for observation and then you should be able to go home tomorrow, okay?"  
He nodded, smiling.

#

Tuesday

Arizona walked into Callie's room, noting how the heart monitor picked up slightly in her presence. Callie's eye's were closed and her breathing even; she looked peaceful.  
"Really, we've been together for almost five years and you think i can't tell the difference between you pretending and you actually sleeping?"  
Callie kept her failed ruse up, not stirring a muscle.  
"Oh okay then, I guess i'll just sit here and hold your hand until you wake up. I've got nothing else to do today other than be with my wife."  
"I'm not your wife anymore, Arizona." Callie sighed.  
"Uh, yes you are. I haven't seen any divorce papers."  
Callie smirked, "You don't need a divorce from a fake marriage."  
Arizona took a stunned second, eyebrows raised; mouth agape, to process the rage that flared from Callie's statement, "Okay, you know what? I know im supposed to be calm and supportive and not provoke you in your hospital bed but now I'm mad because, you and me, we are meant to be together. Whether you like it or not. We are, and you know what? You're not innocent in this thing either! And i know, i know. That it's no excuse for what i did, I'm not trying to make it that way but whether my feelings were rational or not you still hurt me too. So maybe, just maybe in some twisted way, now we're even. Maybe now you and i can find our way back to each other."  
"Arizona, I'm tired. Im so, so tired of this. I cant do it anymore. I don't want to. So please, please just go away." Callie's voice was gentle, and you could hear the ring of exhaustion in her words. You could see the pleading in her eyes. She didn't have the strength for this.  
"You shouldn't have made that promise to me that day, to save my leg. I know it was my fault too because i shouldn't have asked you to make it, Callie, but keeping my leg was the last piece of hope i had right then. And then it was gone." Arizona's voice was calmer now. "But you know what hurts me even more than that? What you did the other night, giving your ring back like the past five years meant nothing to you. Because quite frankly i always believed that no matter what, we would always be together. So right now I'm going to believe that you just did it because you were hurt and I'm going to continue to believe that we're meant to be together because there's nothing else left."  
"Yeah. You, you, you. Your leg. Your hope. Your life. I know Arizona. I hurt you, i ruined your whole life. I know, okay. So just take the out. Go, be happy."  
"There is no being happy without you, Callie."  
Callie pressed her palms over her eyes and exhaled but Arizona's pager saved her from having to answer.

#

Meredith and Dr. Bailey were talking to a patient regarding the surgery she was scheduled to have the next day. Dr. Bailey had taken to assisting Dr. Grey on her surgeries lately as her next baby step back into her old groove. She found it fairly ironic having Bailey assist her as opposed to the way it was during her residency.  
"So we'll make three to four small incisions along your abdomen and then inflate it with carbon dioxide for visibility before i take your gallbladder out. Then all we have to do is an in-op x-ray before i close you up. In and out, it shouldn't take more than two hours for the whole thing." Dr. Grey smiled as she kept the patient's attention on the screen showing the animation of the procedure.  
"Do either you or your husband have any questions before we go?" Asked Dr. Bailey.  
"Yes." The patient's husband smiled politely. "How long will her reco-" suddenly the left side of the man's face began twitching violently, briefly before he completely lost consciousness.  
"Oh my god." Meredith cried.  
"What the-" Dr. Bailey exclaimed as they both rushed to the man's side.  
"Oh no, don't worry. He's fine." His wife called.  
"He's fine?" Dr. Bailey asked incredulously while Meredith check his pulse and pupillary response.  
"Yes, yes. He's fine. He has Narcolepsy. So he falls asleep like that sometimes."  
Meredith and Dr. Bailey shared a skeptical glance at each other.  
"How long has he been like this?" Dr. Grey asked.  
"It started about a year ago. The doctor we saw said it was just latent onset probably caused by stress. He gave him medication for it."  
"And has the medication shown any improvement in his condition?"  
"Not really. But i mean sometimes that happens right? You can't really cure narcolepsy anyway."  
"Yes, that's true, there is no cure for Narcolepsy." Dr. Bailey said slowly.  
Dr. Bailey and Meredith shared another glance.  
"Um, why don't we leave you for now and we can answer any questions you have tomorrow before the surgery?"  
"Okay, thanks Dr. Grey. Dr. Bailey." The patient smiled.  
The two woman waited until they had walked well out of earshot of the room before they started conspiring excitedly.  
"I don't care if god diagnosed that man, he does not have Narcolepsy."  
"I know. Did you see the weird mini-seizure he had before he went down?"  
"Page your husband, that man needs Derek Shepard."

#

Arizona ran to the destination of her 911.  
"What the hell happened?" She asked her resident at the sight of Ryan doubled-over, spluttering up blood and gasping for breath.  
"I have no idea i just got here."  
"We have to intubate." Dr. Robbins indicated for the nurse to bring her the necessary instruments.  
"He's awake." Argued the resident.  
"I know and he's going to be dead in a minute if we don't do this. His saturation is already on 92% any lower and he's going to be comatose. So come on, tell me what the first step is."  
The resident looked utterly panicked but she took a deep breath before responding, "administer glycopyrilate."  
"Very good." Dr. Robbins replied while executing the step. "Next?"  
"Um, lydocaine?"  
"No you missed a step, whats after the glyco'"  
She looked around wildly for a second, "oh, its suction! Suction."  
"There we go. We're going to skip the lydocaine on this patient and just administer a full dose of ketamine to knock him out. Can you tell me why?" Dr. Robbins spoke as she went.  
"We don't have time to wait for the numbing effect?"  
"Perfect. Now place the tube." Dr. Robbins said as the patient lost consciousness. Nodding encouragingly as the resident completely the task fluidly and the patient's saturation slowly increased.  
The urgency in the room finally settled, "okay, now i want you to place an IV and give him a bronchodilator. Then i want you to do a full work up and find out why he was fine yesterday and today he isn't. Let's keep him sedated until we know what to do."  
"Dr. Robbins?" The resident said as her attending made to leave.  
"Yeah?" She turned her head to look back.  
"That was amazing." The resident grinned.  
Dr. Robbins matched her smile, "yeah."

#

Wednesday

Arizona walked into Callie's room for the third time that week. Callie watched as she checked her vitals on the monitor and then listened to her heart through her stethoscope just to be sure.  
"Seriously? There are nurses and interns and people who actually belong in the cardio ward. Don't you have anywhere else to be?"  
"Of course i do. I've got three surgeries and a kid who blew himself up with a chlorine bomb. He was absolutely fine until suddenly he couldn't breathe anymore but his chest x-ray and CT are completely normal and i have no idea why he's dying. So yes, I've got somewhere else i need to be. The problem is i don't want to be there. I want to be here, with you."  
"If i help you with your case will you go away?"  
"You think you know what's wrong with him?"  
"I have an idea."  
"Okay, shoot."  
"You'll go away afterwards?"  
Arizona hesitated but buckled under Callie's pleading eyes, "Fine, i will. I'll leave after you help me."  
"Okay. Start from the beginning."  
Arizona launched into the boys history, giving Callie every detail.  
"Constrictive Bronchiolitis."  
"How can you possibly know that?"  
"I saw a lot of it in Botswana. Didn't you get any kids with it when you were in Malawi?"  
"Maybe two, but that was from TB."  
"Yeah, a few different things can cause it; like a concentrated shot of chlorine gas. You can confirm it with a high resolution CT, there'll be a mosaic pattern in his lungs. And then you can put him on steroids to help him breathe more easily but eventually he might need a transplant."  
"Thank you, Callie."  
"Just go, okay?"

#

"Hi Mrs. Porter, we're ready to take you down for your gallbladder removal. This young man's going to prep you." Dr. Grey nodded at the resident. "I wanted to introduce you to Derek Shepard." She smiled at her husband. "He's the head of Neuro' surgery here at Grey-Sloan memorial as well as one of the board of directors along with myself."  
"What brings you here Dr. Shepard?" The patient's husband asked.  
"Mr. Porter, Dr. Grey informed me of your condition. Quite frankly it's unlike any Narcolepsy case i've ever come across. If you'd allow me to run a few tests i think i may be able to help you."  
"Really? You can fix him?" His wife chimed. He however looked far from pleased. He turned to smile at his wife.  
"Baby, you know what the last doctor said. We'd just be wasting our time."  
"Lucky for you, you have two hours to kill while I'm in surgery." She said lifting her shoulder to her chin to look cute.  
He tried his best not to melt at her insistence but it was inevitable.  
"Okay, i'll let them run their tests." He said matching her growing smile.  
"We're ready here Dr. Grey." The resident interjected.  
The patient took her husband's hand and they looked into each others eyes,  
"I'll see you soon." She said before kissing him.  
He nodded and held a stoic smile as the resident wheeled her away leaving him with Dr. Grey and Shepard.  
"I don't have Narcolepsy."  
"Excuse me?" Dr. Shepard asked while Meredith raised her eyebrows and tried to keep a professional smile.  
"It's a tumour and i've been to neuro surgeon after neuro surgeon but they all say it's inoperable. So i decided to tell her it was Narcolepsy to make it easier on her. It explains why i lose consciousness randomly and she's not worried out of her mind everyday while she waits for me to die."  
"What about when you do die? How is she supposed to feel then?" Asked Dr. Grey. Derek shot her a look and put his hand up to prevent Mr. Porter from answering.  
"I just happen to specialize in inoperable brain tumours. So what do you say we take a look anyway?"

#

"Hey Callie." Alex said as he walked in holding a coffee in each hand. "Look, I know you're not really supposed to have any but i also know you go crazy without the stuff, so i brought you some coffee."  
"Uh, thanks Alex." She replied, not hiding her tone at how suspicious she found his kind gesture.  
He nodded and took a seat beside her. He obviously had something he wasn't sure how to say so Callie sipped her coffee and looked around the room awkwardly while she waited for him to gathered himself.  
"I cheated on Izzy, you know before we were married. I don't even think we were properly dating then actually-" he blurted out.  
"Woah, Karev I'm really not interested in swapping cheating stories." She cut him off. "Or talking about Izzy Stephens, quite frankly."  
"Just hear me out okay, because you and Robbins have something that everybody else wants, and it used to make me want to puke because i was so pissed that i didn't have anything close to that but now i do and i also know how it feels to lose that something so I'm not going to let you two make that mistake without you hearing me out, okay?"  
"Fine." she rolled her eyes. "Just get to the point then, Karev."  
"All i'm saying is that i didn't do it because i didn't have feelings for Izzy anymore. I did it because i was scared. I mean i was an ass too, but i was scared of falling for her and then having her hurt me like every other person in my life had up until that point so i did it to give myself some power you know so that it wouldn't hurt as much in the end. Because i don't know if i could have handled anymore pain in my life right then. At least when she ended things after that it was because i hurt her not because she couldn't love me or because i somehow gave her cancer. That way it was my choice to throw it away instead of having it taken from me. That way i could trick myself into believing it hurt less, that i didn't care that she was gone."  
Callie took a few seconds to process Alex's words.  
"When George cheated on me i was devastated. I mean it actually drove me crazy, i was screaming at patients. I wished Izzy dead so often that it was probably me who gave her cancer, you should actually stop blaming yourself for that by the way." Callie said soberly. "But you know what the thing was with that whole situation? George and i, we weren't really in love. I wanted to be in love with him so hard that i pushed for it with everything i had. I literally had to spell it out for him to ask me out. He never stood up for me. We got married in Vegas for god's sake. Our whole relationship was me chasing after him. We weren't made to last and i can't honestly say that his cheating came out of the blue. Arizona and i were different though." Callie's eyes hardened visibly at the last sentence. "Everything with her was the complete opposite of me and George. She came for me, everyday she was the one pursuing me. We fell in love. Real, true, hollywood-fricken-movie love and still i wasn't good enough."  
"Callie i don't think that Arizona is back from the plane yet. But i believe she's still coming for you, this time she's just coming from a little further away."  
"Im starting to believe my Arizona died on that plane."

#

"Dr. Robbins, i have those scans that you asked for, for Ryan."  
Arizona took them and walked into a consult room to put them up on a backlight.  
"Oh my god, there it is." She whispered with awe.  
"There what is doctor Robbins?"  
"You see this pattern in his lungs?" She indicated the mosaic effect colonised variously on the scan.  
"What does it mean?"  
"Dr. Torres was right, he has Obstructive Bronchiolitis from inhaling the chlorine gas." She replied, not taking her eyes off of the scans. "I want you to double his bronchodilator dosage and start him on steroids and systemic antibiotics. But first i want you to give his name to UNOS because at some point he may need a transplant."  
"A transplant? Gees imagine being a kid just screwing around and living in the moment when suddenly one dumb decision ruins your whole life."  
Arizona turned to look at her resident with narrowed eyes.  
"Life isn't fair. Lives are ruined every day because of dumb decisions and sometimes there's nothing we can do to fix them. But this kid, we can fix. We can help him, his life wont ever be the same, sure, but his whole life isn't ruined either. We're going to help him. We're going to fix his mistake so that he can go on and make more of them because sometimes people do things wrong but that doesn't mean that they deserve to lose everything over it."

#

Thursday

"Hey Dr. Boswell." Dr. Avery smiled, taking a seat beside her in the cafeteria.  
"Dr. Avery." She beamed. "How are you?"  
"Oh good! How are you?" He fluttered his eyes ever so briefly.  
"Im doing just fine." Her eyes tracking something over his shoulder. "If that's all, i hope you'll excuse me-"  
"Oh actually i was hoping to discuss an idea i had for new methods in reconstructive surgery, but if you're busy perhaps we could talk over dinner. Tonight?"  
"No, i have time now. What did you have in mind?" She replied, subtly declining his invitation.  
"Something you said back when we were tucking that babies brain back into his skull, about using the patients own bones always being better. Well it got me thinking, why cant we always use the patient's own bones? Obviously because most of the time 'where are we going to harvest those bones from.' But then i remembered how Dr. Torres grew her own cartilage and it hit me! We can grow the bones for the patient too!" He finished excitedly.  
"That's a very ambitious idea Dr. Avery, but it sounds like you've got it pretty well figured out. Where do i fit into this plan of yours?"  
"As a craniofacial specialist, who knows more about facial bones than you? Together we could revolutionize facial reconstruction surgery."  
"I like it." She grinned.  
"So you're in?"  
"I'm in."

#

Arizona all but ran into Callie's room, her face beaming. "You were right! You were brilliant actually. It was Bronchiolitis. He's doing great, the steroids worked so well i extubated him. I'm gonna keep him for a few days until the therapy is over and then i can send him home. If it wasn't for you i don't think i would have figured it out. You were amazing, Callie."  
"Arizona?" Callie tried to stop her but she kept talking excitedly.  
"Completely brilliant!"  
Callie rose her voice, "Arizona!" And grabbed her wrist.  
She finally stopped speaking, looking Callie nervously in the eye. "What?"  
"I have Bronchiolitis too."  
Arizona scoffed incredulously. "Uh, no you don't."  
"I do, Arizona. I do, because I'm breathing you in and I'm breathing you out and you're suffocating me. So please, please just give me some time to heal and some space to breathe. Because I can't breathe anymore. I can't breathe with you here, Arizona. I cant breathe."

#

"Hey Jen." Mr. Porter greeted his wife as she began stirring. He quickly poured her some water and placed the straw by her lips at the first instance of her intimating dry mouth. She drank slowly before smiling up at her husband.  
"Hey you. How did it go?"  
"The surgery went flawlessly. You should be fully recovered this time next week and i can discharge you in just a couple of days." Dr. Grey smiled.  
"Great. Thank you Dr. Grey." She turned back to her husband. "Oh hey, how did your tests go? Is there anything they can do?"  
"Actually, there is." He smiled tentatively. "But there's something i need to be honest about first."  
"What is it?" She looked confused.  
"Well Jen, i never really had Narcolepsy..."  
"What do you mean?" Immediately portraying worry.  
"It's a tumour, babe." Horror masked her face. "I lied because every doctor said it was inoperable and i didn't want you to have to live with watching me die but then Dr. Shepard- he said he could take it out."  
"Can you?" She turned to Dr. Shepard for confirmation.  
"I can." He directed her attention to a screen so he could show her his approach.  
"You see most surgeons would look at this tumour and see it as inoperable because it's literally located at the bottom of the brain, right next to the hypothalamus." He indicated the method on the screen. "That's a problem here because it means going through so much healthy brain tissue to get to it which is extremely dangerous."  
"So what makes you able to do it when nobody else can?"  
"Well you see, I'm not going to go in that way. Im going to go in through the nose." He said showing it on the animation. "Thereby avoiding all the complications the other procedure would present. Of course this one comes with its own set of complications but it is, in effect, much safer than either alternative."  
Dr. Shepard turned to the couple to await their response, looking very proud with himself and sporting a signature McDreamy grin.  
"What do you think babe?" He asked his wife.  
"I don't want to watch you die."  
"I can have the O.R. prepped and ready to go in an hour."  
"Okay?" Mr. Porter asked her.  
"Okay." She said trying not to look terrified.  
"Okay." Dr. Shepard said, rubbing his hands together. "I'll send an intern up to have you admitted and then we'll get going."

#

Friday

Ethan sat in Owen's office chatting to his soon-to-be foster father. He wore a dull yellow and orange striped shirt with cut-off jeans and a morose expression. They were discussing the living arrangement they would keep once Ethan came to stay.  
"There's a fireman's pole. That's pretty cool huh?" Owen said in an attempt to lighten the boy's mood.  
Just then Christina opened the door, she moved very slowly and looked as if she was going to be sick.  
"Christina, what's the matter?" Owen asked, shocked.  
She held up her hand for him to be quiet and drew in a deep, shaky breath.  
"Do you like baseball?" She spoke hollowly  
It took the two a few seconds to realize Christina was speaking to Ethan.  
"Oh um, yeah sure."  
"Do you want to go to the batting cages?"  
It was then that Owen realised that Christina's discomfort was due to the prospect of interacting with a child. A warm smile spread across his face.  
"That's a great idea! We can all go."  
"No. Just me and th- and Ethan."  
Ethan was starting to look just as nervous as Christina but he agreed nonetheless and so they set out to bond.

#

Arizona sat on the edge of her bed, looking at herself in the mirror across from her, trying to figure out who she had become. As she stared she could have swore that she had seen Callie's face flash in the glass. Healthy Callie. Loving Callie. They weren't the same people anymore. Neither of them. They had both changed at different paces and in different ways, the only thing constant was that they loved each other. They always would, but as she sat there she wondered if it would be enough to bring them back together. Absentmindedly her fingers fiddled with a delicate silver band, not unlike the one sitting currently on her own left ring finger. After the plane crash the inferno that was Arizona had been snuffed out to nothing but a few struggling embers and in the months that followed her flame grew, tentatively but it was ever wavering. She had been too busy trying not to burn out that she hadn't even noticed. Lately it was all she saw. Through her sessions with Dr. Weaver she had learned stability. Staring into her own crystal blue eyes she breathed deeply, evenly, willing herself to be calm and to remember that in the end things would work out the way they were meant to and she would be okay. Her tighter grasp on the logical didn't quell how she yearned not to have to be okay without Callie because she believed what she had said. Callie was her soul mate.

#

"Good Afternoon Mr. Porter, how are you feeling?" Dr. Shepard said upon finding the man awake post-op.  
"Groggy... Headache." He said weakly.  
"Can you form a complete sentence for me please?" He asked while checking his pupillary function.  
"Yeah, i can. I just feel sluggish." He chuckled.  
"That's just the aneasthesia wearing off. You were under for quite some time." Dr. Shepard smiled. "Squeeze my hand please?"  
"How long was the surgery?"  
"It was 18 hours, but we got it all. You'll probably experience some discomfort in your nasal passage for a few days and you can expect some bleeding, but from my side i don't think the surgery could have gone better."  
"So i'm gonna be okay?"  
"Well i'm going to have to ran quite a few tests and keep you for close observation but barring any post-op complications, yes. I think you're going to be just fine."  
"Thank you Dr. Shepard." Came a female voice from the doorway.  
"Jen." Mr. Porter smiled.  
"Hey." She smiled sweetly as Meredith rolled her to his beside and then stepped back to stand beside her own husband. "So he's okay?" She asked Dr. Shepard just to confirm. He nodded.  
She turned back to her husband and her face became a mask of rage, "Don't you ever lie to me again." She hissed with more venom than one would have believed her capable of. Her husband's eyes widen as he stiffened with fear.  
"Well at least we know your emotional response is still in tact." Dr. Shepard laughed.

#

The lights went down in the patient rooms. Nurses closed the curtains and settled the wards down for the night. Callie lay awake, aware of nothing but the emptiness either side of her just as she had been every other night that week. She counted the beeps from her pulsing heart on the monitor, like counting sheep, trying to fall asleep. But her heart felt empty too. She curled her hand tightly around the chain hanging from her neck. She wasn't cold but she trembled, realizing that the catch in her chest was made of the breath she had forgotten to take; she let it in and let go of the tears she'd held back so well all day. Just like the tears she had held back yesterday and everyday before it.

#

People like to put on masks during the day, painting themselves a certain way in the eyes of everyone else. We all do it, it's how we cope. Sometimes we even start to believe our own lies when we look in the mirror because we prefer the person we pretend to be over the one we know deep down we actually are. But at night it becomes harder to pretend because our dreams know us better than we know ourselves and they aren't afraid to tell us about it. Sometimes there are demons in our dreams that we just cant bring ourselves to face. And sometimes avoiding them doesn't stop them from eating us alive from the inside out.


	6. This road before

6. This road before

Surgeons are control freaks. It doesn't stop with our patients either, we like to control everything. We make sure we know every detail, we control the way everyone around us behaves, everything we own has a place and we make sure it stays there even if it is just controlled chaos. If it can be controlled we'll control it and we'll do anything to keep that control because if anything happened to take that power away from us, we might just go crazy.

#

It was a week after the interns returned from their summer break. They were now officially residents with their own slew of moronic interns of whom they could take advantage. They were gathered in the residents' locker room, changing into their periwinkle blue scrubs, still completely absorbed in the novelty of their newfound power. A man with a clipboard and a bored expression walked in, stopping within the door frame, the door propped open with his right hand.  
"Ross, you're with Bailey. Wilson with Karev. Brooks with Shepard. Murphy with Avery and Boswell, and Edwards you're in the pit." Their chief resident said before walking out again.  
"Ha! You're in the pit. Sucks for you." Murphy goaded.  
"Whatever. Avery and Boswell are still working on their special project. Their names aren't even on the Board for today. Have fun doing coffee runs all day." Edwards shot back.  
The residents walked out of their locker room into the gaggle of interns whom they had ordered to be waiting there for them. None of them stopped to attract their attention but merely walked confidently away to their own destinations, their interns following along magnetically behind. Each resident kept an air of nonchalance about them but they all got a high from the way they were silently obeyed. Remembering how mighty their own resident had been in their eyes the previous year and knowing that that was who they had become now. They reveled in their ascension up the hospital's immortal hierarchy.  
Ross, Wilson and Brooks went to meet their attendings for rounds after which they assigned interns to the tedious tasks of scud, patient work-ups and post-op evalutions.  
Murphy was doomed to a day as a research lackey on the Avery-Boswell bone project despite her every attempt to pawn it off on one of her own interns so that she could seek a surgery to jump in on. That left very little for her interns to do, so she assigned one to keep an eye on her patients and sent the rest to the pit.

Dr. Edwards led the way into the E.R. She made her way to the nurses station and turned to face the interns.  
"So this is your first time working the pit, i can tell from the foolish grins on many of your faces that you think that means that you will be allowed to perform procedures on patients." She roved her stony gaze over all of their faces. "You would be wrong." She smirked as their faces fell. "You will be doing patient work-ups for me and running tests. Now pick a bed and get to work and if you're good maybe i'll let you suture somebody." She shooed them away.  
"Dr. Edwards," the nurse called. "In coming."  
She nodded, "you two," she gestured at the nearest two interns. "Come with me.  
The interns bounced with excitement as they put on their trauma gowns and waited for the ambulance to arrive. It pulled in, sirens blaring before the doors burst open and a gurney was borne bearing a man who was desperately trying to clutch his leg while screaming in pain and being restrained to the best of the EMT's ability.  
"29 year old male sustained a knee dislocation in the field while playing football."  
Dr. Edwards took over from the EMT's and wheeled the patient inside the hospital  
"Okay, how do we treat this man?" She asked her interns.  
"Reduce the joint, get a CT and then take him to the O.R. to repair the ligaments."  
One of the interns blurted out while the other sheepishly lowered their now uselessly raised hand.  
"Dr. Cooper, do you agree with Dr. West's approach?"  
"Uh yes, i do." She replied tentatively.  
"1, 2, 3." They lifted the man from his gurney and onto a trauma bed. "Congratulations, you get to assist, go page Ortho." Dr. Edwards said, eliciting a surprised grin from the girl.  
"Um, excuse me doctor-" Dr. West began.  
"Uh!" Dr. Edwards raised her hand to silence him. "Next time raise your hand. Now get back to what you were doing before this man can in." He left with a sour look on his face.

#

Callie was finally back at work following her recovery and she was looking forward to it because after all she loved being a surgeon. She was headed for the coffee cart, looking forward to reveling in the caffeine as it sharpened her mind and awoke her senses. Man, she loved coffee.  
"Hi, Arizona Robbins, paeds surgery." She said perkily, sticking out her hand to shake.  
"Uh, what are you doing?" Callie raised her eyebrow before going forward to collect her order.  
"I'm starting over." Arizona smiled. "You see, I've been going to therapy and i've realised that i haven't been the person that you need me to be. I havent loved you the way you deserve to be loved."  
"Oh therapy told you that?" Callie asked derisively.  
"Well no, Meredith Grey helped me see that. Meredith and a lot of tequila."  
"Oh well great for you." She made to walk away.  
Arizona followed her, "but my therapist, she helped me see that i have PTSD, which is why i was so irrational about you deciding to cut my leg off instead of letting me die as well as why i was so angry and how i misappropriated all of the blame on you for the crash and the leg and the all around just not feeling like myself." She babbled.  
"Wow your therapist is a genius." Callie replied sarcastically  
"But the most important thing Christina actually showed me was that we're meant to be together, but our relationship wasn't built on top of a solid base. She said that we can turn the fact that we're at rock bottom into a good thing. Like a new start where we can build us up the right way. So that i can treat you the way you deserve to be treated."  
"Oh thats what you're gonna do, is it?"  
"Yes, Calliope."  
Callie laughed, "No. You're not. I'll tell you what you are doing though. You're ruining coffee time."

#

Dr. Murphy sat with her face in her hand, staring in utter boredom at the umpteenth article on bone science. The room had been quiet for quite some time, it's three occupants diligently working away, so Dr. Murphy wasn't the only one getting restless.  
"That's a pretty necklace, Dr. Boswell." Jackson gestured at the blue teardrop suspended above the papers she was leaning over.  
"Oh, thank you." She smiled politely before turning back to her work.  
"It uh, really brings out your eyes, the blue. It's lovely."  
"You're very sweet, Dr. Avery." She laughed.  
"Oh please, call me Jackson." He laughed. "We've been working together long enough to be on a first name basis."  
"Uh, how about i go on a coffee run? I think we could all use the caffeine." Dr. Murphy said, eager to leave the newly awkward room.  
"Yeah that'd be great." Jackson encouraged.  
"Actually, why don't i do it. Then i could check up on a patient at the same time."  
"I'm sure Dr. Murphy can check on your patient for you."  
"Yeah, it's no trouble."  
"No, no. It's okay, my legs could use a stretch anyway." She insisted before getting up and making her way to the door. She turned to face them, smiling. "What's everyone having?"

#

Callie stood at the nurses station on the third floor, one hand propping her head up from the counter and the other resting aggressively on her hip. Her eyes were steely slits and she made no effort to hide that she was staring behind the menial task of updating charts.  
"Um d-d-doctor Torres, i um, i have th-those scans you ordered." Squeaked one of the new interns. "F-for Mr. Schneider." She continued when she didn't get a reply.  
"Yeah, drop 'em and go, intern."  
She bolted at the ice in Callie's voice.  
Sniggering erupted from the computer at the nurses station, "i swear she literally just peed herself." Callie glanced down at Yang as she yawned widely. "I was supposed to be the most feared attending in this hospital." Christina shook her head tiredly. "What are you glaring at anyway." Christina followed her gaze all the way to Dr. Boswell who was busy with a patient. "Oh."  
"Old Callie would have beaten the crap out of her by now. Old Callie was a bad ass. I went soft. Yeah, I'm a disgrace to myself."  
Dr. Boswell was walking down the hall now, on her way past Callie and Christina.  
"Hey Boswell!" Callie called. She looked up and changed her path, walking cooly and keeping eye contact with Callie. Christina made her way from behind the nurses station to stand closer to Callie, expecting to have to restrain her.  
"Dr. Torres?" Lauren replied, keeping an infallible demeanor.  
"I break bones for a living. Im an orthopedic surgeon, i break bones all day. I like to break bones." Callie said calmly.  
Dr. Boswell considered for a second and decided to counter Callie's threat, "Yeah, you do, don't you. And then i come in and i fix those bones. The ones that you broke."  
Callie's face turned rabid and she jumped forward, being caught at the last second by Yang, and exploded into a cacophony of vicious spanish while she clawed at the air between herself and the woman before her. Dr. Boswell smirked and walked away.

#

"Hey i brought lunch and coffee." Meredith said as she met Christina in her lotus-valve research lab. Christina looked up from her textbook and eagerly grabbed a cup.  
"Yes, coffee! Lots and lots of coffee." Before taking a long gulp. She had crazy eyes.  
"Have you been home yet?" Meredith asked cautiously.  
"Um, whats the time?"  
"It's noon, when did your shift start?"  
"Um 8am," she pulled a guilty face. "Yesterday."  
"Gees Christina."  
"Oh whatever, we did it every other day when we were interns."  
"That's a good point. Man have you seen this new group of interns? We were never that weasely."  
"Weasely?" Christina raised her eyebrows. "Ha! That's going to stick."  
"And the residents have gone crazy. I saw Dr. Ross order his intern to give a patient an enema and then burst out into maniacal laughter."  
Christina chuckled, "i know, i saw Edwards abusing the weasels earlier with a finesse she could only have learnt from me. I was so proud."  
Alex walked in carrying his own lunch and sat on a desk facing the two.  
"Hey this isn't the cafeteria." Christina chastised.  
"Whatever, when do we ever eat in the cafeteria?"  
"Good point. Hey how's it going with you and Hairball?"  
"It's going great. Too great, i keep waiting for her head to spin all the way around or to come home and find her brewing finger nail stew or something. And hey, stop calling her Hairball."  
"Fine but i'm going to rub it in when she spontaneously sprouts fur all over her body."  
"Only you could be unhappy about being too happy, Alex." Meredith teased.  
"You know what, i don't know why i ever try to eat lunch with you two." He sneered before getting up and leaving.  
"Hey did you hear Callie tried to beat Boswell up earlier?" Christina added casually.  
"What? What happened?"  
"Oh, she went crazy! I think she would have killed Babyface if i didn't hold her back."  
"Callie's scary when she's mad. I remember how she attacked me when she thought i told George that she slept with Sloan."  
They both sniggered.  
"This place is never boring."

#

Callie was informing her intern on how to take care of Mr. Schneider post-op.  
"I want you to wean him off of the heparin and start him on warfarin. Check his incision sites for infection and keep his leg brace locked no matter how much he complains about wanting to move his leg." Callie glanced over the interns shoulder, instantly her entire presence changed. Whereas before her attention was focused on anything but the timid, blonde intern before her who was sure to end up crying within another five minutes in her presence, Callie now looked the young girl directly in the eyes. Softening her gaze as it met the fearful green before her, she flipped her hair as she put her hand on the girl's arm.  
"There's no need to look so scared, Dr. Cooper. You're actually doing a really great job." Callie flashed her trademark smile at the girl. "You know i was really impressed when i heard you were the one that got picked to do the appy on your first day." The girl had relaxed considerably to the point of sporting a small smile herself. Callie moved slightly closer to her and lowered her voice an octave, "i got to do the appy my first day as well, but i didn't do anywhere near as well you did." Callie's hand was still on the interns arm and she was now blushing violently.  
"Beat it, intern!" Dr. Cooper jumped at the firm voice behind her and scurried away like a frightened animal.  
"Uh, excuse me, i was in the middle of a conversation." Callie chastised the new blonde that had taken the previous one's place.  
"Oh please." Arizona replied.  
"What do you want anyway?"  
"I brought you coffee to make up for this morning."  
"Oh. That's um really unnecessary of you."  
"So i heard you went all cage fighter on the third floor earlier."  
"Worried i might have hurt your girlfriend?"  
"No, i was thinking that sounded incredibly hot actually" Arizona shot Callie her best flirty smile. "and i was wondering if maybe you'd let me take you to dinner tonight."  
"Okay, you know what your problem is? You skip steps, lots of steps. I used to do that too, but then i figured out that moving in came before babies." She held up her hand to emphasize her point. "Oh and you don't communicate well either. No you just sit and let your feelings fester silently while i think that life is great until you leave me in an airport because you couldn't tell me that my mood bothered you. Or you cheat on me with a stranger because you couldn't let me in to how you were struggling with your leg. And now? Your flirting with me and trying to take me on a date? Seriously Arizona, moving in comes before babies."  
"Okay, fine you're right asking you out was a terrible idea. It was, but maybe you could help me out because I'm trying here, I'm really trying but I'm seriously starting to run out of ideas."  
"Maybe that's a sign that you should just stop trying." Callie replied shortly.

#

The residents were sitting in the cafeteria, reveling in their power.  
"This has been the best week ever. Who knew how much fun it was destroying interns." Dr. Ross enthused.  
"It definitely explains a lot of what happened to us last year." Dr. Wilson added  
"Im having so much fun, need some paperwork done? Got a bowel obstruction? Intern!" Dr. Ross mused.  
"I decided to follow Yang's example and give mine horrible names." Dr. Edwards grinned evilly.  
"Dr. Edwards." Came a timid voice. They all turned to look at the teary Dr. Cooper, who had just arrived holding a shaky lunch tray.  
"Scram, residents don't eat lunch with interns." Dr. Murphy interjected.  
"No, i um-" her face turned bright red and her eyes darted around like she was looking for any kind of escape.  
"Just spit it out." Dr. Edwards demanded.  
"I was wondering if maybe i could be put on a different attending's service, please?" She pleaded.  
"What's wrong with Dr. Torres?"  
"She hates me."  
"We all hate you." Dr. Ross cut in.  
"How can she hate you? It's her first day back."  
"Cut her some slack she's been through hell." Added Dr. Brooks  
"She's just been really mean and then suddenly she was touching my arm and telling me how impressed she was with me getting picked for the solo appy on my first day-"  
All the residents burst out laughing.  
"Impressed?"  
"Was she high?"  
"If Dr. Robbins hadn't showed up and told me to leave when she did i think Dr. Torres might have made a move." Dr. Cooper continued.  
"Oh!" Everyone exclaimed in unison, understanding how Callie had been using the intern.  
"I tried hitting on Dr. Torres once." Everybody looked up at Dr. Wilson, taken aback. "She told me she was a horny bear." Jo continued, pulling a face.  
"Please Dr. Edwards?"  
"No, deal with Dr. Torres yourself." She replied.  
"Maybe if you put out a little she'll be nicer to you." Dr. Ross suggested  
"Or you could just try standing up for yourself." Added Dr. Wilson.  
"I don't care what you do, just go do it somewhere else." Dr. Edwards dismissed her intern.  
"What did you name that one?" Dr. Brooks asked.  
"Moaning Myrtle." Dr. Edwards replied to a chorus of laughter.

#

Callie's shift was a few hours from over but all she could think about was picking Sofia up and heading home so that she could unwind in the bath with a glass of red and some Gomez in the background. Her schedule was very flexible today so she decided to head up to an on call room for a nap as an alternative. She was smiling because despite how tired she was she had felt like a god again today. As the elevator doors closed she leaned against the back and let out a contented breath just before a navy and white figure hopped in at the last second.  
"Oh, no. No, no no. You don't get to do this. You don't get to corner me in the elevator and pour your little blonde heart all over me to try and convince me to give you another chance. No. So we're gonna take the next minute that we're stuck together in here and spend it in silence. Okay?"  
"Okay." Arizona nodded.  
"Okay." Callie crossed her arms and lent back against the elevator wall.  
There was an almighty crunch and the lights flickered as the gliding box ground to a halt.  
"No!" Callie screamed, snapping to borderline hysterical in a second. "Goddammit-"  
"Callie, c-"  
"No, the universe doesn't get to do this to me either. Not today!" And she began frantically clawing at the doors in a bid to pry them open.  
"Callie." Arizona put her hands on Callie's shoulders.  
She shrugged them off, "help me get these doors open."  
"Callie!" Arizona was more forceful, she pulled her from the doors, spun her around and held her tightly in a bid to calm her down.  
"No, get off!"  
"Callie calm down! You just recovered from severe heart injury, you need to calm down." Arizona kept a tight grip around her.  
"Yeah, that you caused." She said as she struggled.  
"I know. i know and I'm so sorry. Just calm down now. Everything's going to be okay. Its just residual damage from the storm, they'll fix it in no time." Callie relaxed now, but she was crying. "Everything's gonna be okay." Arizona cooed, rubbing gentle circles along Callie's back.  
A mere ten minutes had passed when the lights flickered again and the elevator lurched back into motion.  
"You see." Arizona loosed her arms from around Callie. "I told you it wouldn't be long."  
The doors finally opened releasing the two back into the world. "Callie."  
She met Arizona's gaze dully. "Maybe you should take the rest of the day off, get some rest. I can bring Sofia home later."  
Callie nodded, "Okay. Um- thanks."

#

Jackson paced the attending's lounge restlessly, his eyes never leaving the phone on the table. He and Lauren had been promised a phone call from the FDA any minute now regarding the approval for their bone project.  
"Hey Alex said you were in here." Jackson looked up as April entered the room. "Have they called-" her question was cut off by the sound of Katy Perry's Roar breaking the anticipation.  
"Really that's your ring tone?" April asked, but he wasn't listening. The moment the phone lit up he had jumped across the distance and snatched it up.  
"Hello?"  
"You have?"  
"Yes, yes i-"  
"Okay. I understand. Thank you."  
"You have a good day too." April listened to his half of the phone call, watching his face jump through a myriad of emotions before choosing blank shock as the last as he put down the phone.  
"Oh, Jackson-" April began, meaning to comfort him.  
"They said yes!"  
"What?" Suddenly surprised.  
"They said yes, we got approval!"  
"Oh my god, that's amazing." She squealed, hugging him.  
They drew apart after a few seconds, his eyes wide with happy disbelief, and held each other at arms length, enjoying the moment.  
"Oh, i uh- i better go tell Lauren."  
"Oh, yeah. Um of course. Congratulations, Jackson." April said as she saw him out the door.  
Jackson ran down the corridor, not entirely sure of where he was going. He soon found his mark however, running to her across the lobby as she descended the last few stairs in her street clothes.  
"We got it." He exclaimed.  
"We got it?" Dr. Boswell grinned.  
"We got it!"  
They shared an awkward semi-hug, separating quickly, their initial excitement beginning to fade.  
"We should get a drink to celebrate, my shift isn't over for a couple more hours but-." Jackson suggested.  
"Oh you know, i already have plans. I'll just see you tomorrow?"  
"Oh yeah. Uh sure. Okay." He looked at the floor dejectedly once she walked past him towards the main doors, his hands on his hips. "Actually, no." He turned to follow her with a fire in his eyes. "No it's not okay." He caught her just outside the doors, the polite smile she always wore in professional situations now gone.  
"Dr. Avery?" She said, shifting the long brown coat resting over her right arm.  
"Look, i've been putting my all into attracting your attention and you just don't... I mean you make me feel confident. The kind of confident i never thought i would feel again after Sloan died. Around you i feel like i can do anything, that's got to mean something doesn't it? Please just have a drink with me tonight."  
"Dr. Avery i-i'm flattered but, well quite frankly i'm surprised you don't know already; Dr. Torres hasn't exactly been discreet about what happened-"  
"Wait, you' seeing Dr. Torres?"  
"Oh no. No i um, Dr. Robbins and i-"  
"You're who she had an affair with!?" He held a hand up to attract clarity, the other resting firmly on his hip, a disgusted look on his face. "You took advantage of her."  
"Excuse me, Arizona is perfectly capable of making her own decisions."  
"You know what, forget the drink. I'm sorry i kept you, i'm sure you're running on a tight schedule breaking up marriages and all." Jackson spoke quietly before walking back into the hospital. "God i'm such an idiot." He whispered to himself.

#

Callie had meant to go home after leaving the hospital but somehow she found herself somewhere else entirely. She stood on a stone path the colour of eggshell that stretched up over the horizon, cutting a contrasting line through the emerald expanse around her. The frequent rainfall of Seattle always kept the greenery looking so alive and sated. There were trees arranged intermittently, throwing shade across the ground like ghostly picnic blankets and breaking the smooth line of the horizon. The sky was a deepened shade of periwinkle, playing off the hour of the afternoon. The sun was on its way to setting, twinkling low in the sky and openly demanding attention. Callie walked along the familiar path, ignoring the beautifully polished stones that made their home around the place and made straight for the giant conical alder that acted as a road sign indicating the proximity of her destination. Her feet didn't need her eyes to get where she was going, she'd been there so often before. She walked the final few feet through the cloud of her tears and sat in the spot she knew so well.  
"Hey you." She smiled weakly. "I know it's been a while since i was here last. I've been recovering from what happened that night, I should probably thank you for sending help. I know you saved my life, but i- i'm not sure you should have. Maybe it would have been better if you had just let me go here beside you. This place is starting to feel more like home than anywhere else; a place for lost souls. I could be okay here." She reached her hand forward and traced the letters of her best friends name across cool granite. "But then i remember Sofia and i... I'm so disgusted with myself for ever having the thought cross my mind. What kind of a mother thinks that, what kind of person?" Callie took a deep, unsteady breath. "Im trying so hard to move on without her but i cant. I can't because i know what I'm missing and as hard as i try, i can't unlove her. And I'm just so pissed at myself, Mark. Im so angry for letting things get like this. What am i going to do? I don't have the strength to keep pushing her away anymore."

#

Dr. Ross sat in Joe's at the bar, knocking back shots. He stared blankly ahead of himself. Dr. Wilson walked into the bar right then and joined him. She groaned dejectedly as she sat down.  
"Eugh, we were supposed to be rockstars this year, you know done paying our dues in the intern coal mine, but no. No, today- do you know what i did all day? I held suction. For eight hours, i sucked juice from a kid's belly."  
"I would give anything to have held suction instead of living my day over again." Said Dr. Murphy as she joined them.  
"Why, what'd you do?"  
"I had to sit in the awkward-fest that was Dr. Avery hitting on Boswell all day. I mean how has he not realized she's gay?"  
"She's gay?" Was Dr. Wilson's incredulous reply.  
"Uh duh?"  
"Whatever, she's still hot." Dr. Ross took a long drag from his beer. "I wish that had been my day."  
"Eugh, you're such a pig, Shane." Jo replied.  
"What could you have possibly done that was worse than that?" Leah asked.  
"Nope. We're not going to talk about it." He said taking another long drink.  
"It can't be worse than what happened to me." Dr. Edwards said as she sat, ordering herself a drink.  
They all looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.  
"I misdiagnosed a panic attack as an MI in front of eight interns. It doesn't get more humiliating than that."  
"Ha! You so win." Leah exclaimed.  
"Oooh you definitely had the worst day." Jo scoffed.  
"How did you even get into this programme." Leah continued.  
"Are you all competing for who had the worst day?" Heather asked, confused.  
"Uh, yeah?" Leah replied.  
"You were doctors today. You saved lives. How could that ever be a bad day? I know. I know, you thought life would be cooler this year. But we're second years, you cant honestly expect to have been given a scalpel and free reign to cut people up. I mean, if we were you would have performed an Angioplasty on somebody who needed a paper bag." She giggled at Stephanie. "You're all to busy trying to find your endgame that you're missing the magic of today. Come on guys enjoy the ride, we're saving lives." She grinned.  
The four of them looked at her quietly with expressions of mingled guilt and perplexity.  
"You did something awesome, didn't you?" Jo realized.  
"What? No i-"  
"You did!" Lea exclaimed  
"Alright fine. Shepherd let me perform the Matador move on an aneurism that he clipped today. It was amaze-balls."  
"How do you manage to make me simultaneously jealous of you and happy that I'm not you because you just said 'amaze-balls'?" Stephanie asked.  
Heather shrugged. "What do you say we turn these drinks of mourning into drinks of celebration?"  
Everybody except Shane nodded, "I went in the wrong hole." He said.  
"Excuse me?" Jo asked.  
"Dr. Bailey asked me to remove a bowel obstruction in her patient today, but instead of making an intern do it, i decided to try and get in Bailey's good books by helping the lady myself and i..." He said slowly, unable to finish the sentence. He looked as if he was about to cry as his fellows burst into shocked laughter. He downed the rest of his drink while Jo wiped tears from her eyes and Leah gasped for air beside him.

#

Callie got home a little after sunset, sighing as she walked through the door of her dark apartment. She dropped her bag on the table and walked into the bathroom to wash the dried tears from her face. It wasn't long before Callie awoke to a knock on her door. "Hi baby girl." She chimed happily at the sight of her daughter. Stepping aside to let Arizona pass. They set about readying her for bed, not saying a word to each other. When Sofia was finally down Callie went to pour herself a glass of wine. "Thanks for bringing her home." She said, not looking Arizona in the eye. "Do you," she hesitated. "Want some." She indicated her glass.  
"Sure." She said, taking the glass as Callie poured a new one for herself. "You know I'm always happy to spend time with Sofia.  
Callie nodded.  
"You look tired, did you manage to get some sleep this afternoon?"  
"No, i um-" Callie paused, closing her eyes and taking a steadying breath, she downed her wine. "You know what, either i have no self control, or the universe hates me. Or both. Its probably both. But say i did give you another chance. Say i put myself in that position again. What do i really have to lose? I mean like i said, the next time you hurt me its probably gonna kill me. And then i'll be dead and you'll be sad for the rest of your life. I can live with that. Well, you know what i mean."  
"Callie, what are you saying?"  
"Im saying fine, whatever. I'll- ill listen..." She rolled her eyes. "To what you have to say."  
"You will?" Arizona grinned.  
"On one condition." Callie continued.  
Arizona's expression faltered. "Um okay, anything. I'll do anything for you."  
"I wanna know why first."  
"Why?" A second of puzzlement overcame her face. "Because I'm in love with you, Calliope. That's why."  
"No." Callie raised her eyebrows, hand raised to reject her statement. Firstly because she had a hard time believing that from Arizona. But more importantly because, "no, that's not what i meant."  
"Oh." Arizona's face fell completely. She led Callie to the couch so they could sit, taking the bottle of wine with her. "I've spoken to Dr. Weaver about this, about why; because at first i didn't even understand myself. But i guess i did it because for those 20 minutes i didn't feel broken anymore, for the first time in almost a year. But it wasn't about Lauren," Callie cringed at the name. "It wasn't even about the sex if i really go into it. She said to me 'you're allowed to lose a little bit of control'. And id been holding on so hard to these walls that i didn't even know i had put up so when she said that i just- i let everything go. And in that time i wasn't an amputee victim and i didn't have a wife who i blamed for everything bad that had happened to me. i was just somebody without a story, without problems. But while i was doing it-"  
"Oh i don't need to hear the details." Callie interjected with disgust.  
"I realized what a giant mistake i was making and i got out of there so fast that i didn't even put the right clothes back on." Arizona continued, looking at Callie intently. "Afterwards i saw just how much i had been holding onto and bottling up. Before i went into that on call room i had no idea how broken i was but now i know, and I'm doing something about it."  
"You know, who goes back to someone after that person has destroyed them." Callie's voice was calm and slow. "Who lets a person back into their lives after they've refuted your dream, after they've left you and flown a world away to get away from you.. After they've put you through a windshield and nearly killed you." She raise her eyebrows and gave a self depreciating laugh. "After they've blamed you everyday for ruining their lives and then sacrificed their own fidelity just to prove it. Who does that? Im like the mouse who gets shocked every time he eats the cheese but still eats it anyway. Im that person."  
"Callie, I'm so sorry." Arizona had tears in her eyes but her voice was quiet. "So sorry for every moment of pain i've ever given you but I'm learning. Im learning how to be better, for you. Because i am so in love with you, Calliope. I love you so-"  
"No. You don't get to tell me that you love me, ever again. Because you don't destroy the person you love. You don't. So you wanna do this, you wanna start over. Then we start from right at the beginning and you don't get to tell me you love me. Not until you start acting like you actually do."

#

Losing control isn't always a bad thing, sometimes we need to give somebody else a chance to step up, to see who they can be so they can be that person after we're gone. Sometimes it's how we embrace the past and move forward to the next chapter of our lives. But it doesn't make it any less terrifying, not knowing where we stand or what's in store for us next. The truth is we never really have complete control over anything and sometimes there's nothing else to do but let the tide take us wherever it's going.


	7. Some will seek forgiveness others escape

7. Some will seek forgiveness, others escape.

Hope is just as much the tool of a surgeon as a scalpel. Every human needs that reassurance, that glimmer that makes them believe that just maybe everything will be okay again. Just as much as surgeons use hope to help their patients survive and to help their loved ones hold on, they need hope themselves. So that they can find the courage to trust their instincts with their patients and so that they can find a way to pull through if their instincts turn out to be wrong. Religious faith in a surgeons is an odd thing, most surgeons have trouble with the idea because they're scientists after all; the truth is you can see some horrors in a hospital that make the idea of a god having caused those things terrifying. I have met some surgeons who run off of faith though, it helps them get out of bed in the morning; the idea that everything happens for a reason gives them the sense of detachment that allows them to let go. Either way, whether you believe in God or in science that's still something; it's still a source of hope. You need it, otherwise you're just wandering around in the dark waiting for the ghosts to jump out of the shadows. Otherwise you become completely accountable for your life and everything that's happened in it. I don't know if i'd be able to do it.

###

"I always used to be so proud. My dad raised me to be a good man in a storm and i was proud because i always felt like thats who i was-"  
"Yeah and then the storm came." Callie scoffed.  
"Yes," she nodded soberly. "and i know that should make me rethink my opinion of myself over the course of my whole life but it doesn't-"  
"That's just because you're a gigantic narcissist."  
"No, Callie. I mean, i am; we both are. But no, you see that is who i am. It's who i've been through every other storm in my life except this one. It might as well be the definition of my name: Arizona Robbins is a good man in a storm. So when that storm came and i wasn't good that tells me i wasn't Arizona Robbins. I wasn't me."  
"You're not about to plead insanity are you?"  
"Of course not, but you cant deny that i haven't been myself. I lost who i was when that plane crashed and Christina said something to me that helped me realize a lot. She said that i tried to heal too fast afterwards and i built myself up so high to get away from that trauma that it was only inevitable that i'd come crashing back down to earth and you'd get hit on the way down."  
"Cristina said that?" Callie said skeptically.  
"Yes, she did." Arizona smiled proudly. "So now i know where i went wrong and i know how to rebuild our trust. I can fix us, if you'll just let me?"  
"Okay."  
"Okay?" Arizona's face lit up.  
"I'll listen." Callie nodded. The two women sat in Callie's apartment, the same way they had been sitting the whole night, drinking wine and finding it hard to make eye-contact.  
"I want to tell you what happened." Arizona said slowly, studying the ruby glow refracting onto the table from the wine bridging the light.  
"What?"  
"When the plane crashed, I want to tell you what happened, because i keep blaming you for not understanding how i feel but thats just it. You weren't there, you have no idea and that's not your fault. So i want to tell you. I want you to understand. I want to let you in."  
"I saw, Arizona." Callie shook her head. "I saw what it did to you; to all of you-"  
"But you weren't-"  
"No, Arizona, i wasn't but i saw how you came back broken. I knew about how you cried every night when you thought nobody could hear you falling apart. I knew about the nightmares because i always heard you scream. Every time you smiled at me i watched your eyes stay blank. Every time you laughed it was hollow, i could hear it. I saw that you weren't Arizona. I saw it everyday but i tried to forget because i knew it was my fault that you were gone and i knew that i forfeited every right i had to you when i took your leg. I lost you that night and somehow I became careless; because you kept on falling and i didn't catch you a single time." She finished defeatedly, all the sarcasm having drained from her.  
"Callie, you didn't know how to; you cant blame yourself for that. I don't believe that you would have hesitated for a second if you'd known where i was going to fall."  
"I should have been paying better attention." A solitary tear slipped from Callie's left eye, she squeezed them both shut and took a deep ragged breath before covering her face with her hand. "I should have been there."  
"As surgeons we always joke about how we're gods. You know, i think most of us even believe we are. Saving lives all day, saving children, building limbs. It's easy to get lost in your ego. Out in those woods though, i learnt who God really was. I learnt just how different the two of us are. Like he took that plane down to bring us back down to size or something in some mighty display of power. I know it's ridiculous and logically i shouldn't believe it, i mean i'm not even religious, you're the religious one, but..." Arizona shuddered and took a deep breath. "I would give my leg again to keep you from having to go through what I did, Callie."  
Arizona gave Callie a second to process before going on.  
"I remember being on the plane and i remember being next to it." Arizona continued slowly, looking unseeingly ahead of herself. "But i don't remember getting there, i don't remember the crash. I was just lying on the ground, i could see the sky through the trees and somebody was screaming; they wouldn't stop screaming. It wasn't until Christina yelled at me to shut up that i realized it was me. It was like waking up- but not really because when i wake I'm you're supposed to be there, you're supposed to be holding me and i'm supposed to be warm and-" Arizona's voice was rising with panic, her breathing had turned rapid. Callie quickly took the wine glasses and moved them to the table before scooting closer to Arizona on the couch and placing a firm hand on her shoulder.  
"Im here. Im here now. Look at me." Callie gently moved Arizona's face up to look at her own. "You're safe. I'm here." She watched carefully as Arizona's eyes cleared, the panic draining away as she recognized Callie beside her; finding home in her warm brown eyes. Once Callie was sure Arizona had calmed down she removed her hands from her cheek and shoulder. "You don't have to do this tonight."  
Arizona took a second to grab a tissue from the box on the table and wipe her eyes before responding. "No, i'm okay. I want to do this. Dr. Weaver says I'm ready, she says this will be good for me. Oh but, you- are you not ready? Do you need to-" Arizona's eyes were wide as she realized that this must be just as difficult for Callie as it was for her.  
"No, Arizona I'm fine. I'll listen as long as you want to talk." She cut in, gently.  
Arizona gave a small smile, nodding. "You know i think thats the first time you've ever-"  
"Considered your feelings?"  
"No, i-" Callie began again.  
"No its okay. Its true, i mean i- " she babbled.  
"Arizona!" Callie smirked, "i was going to say that i think that's the first time you've ever listened to what somebody else thought was good for you."  
"Oh." It finally dawned on her that she was being teased, it had been so long that she almost didn't recognize it. "Well that's just not true at all."  
"Ha!" Callie raised her eyebrows skeptically, Arizona just pursed her lips in response.  
"How about i continue with my story?" And instantly the energy in the room reverted back to the dark reservation it had held just a few minutes previously. "Where was i?"  
"Um, Christina told you to stop screaming and you woke up to what had happened." Callie said quietly.  
"Yeah." Arizona's energy became introverted once more. "I um, i realized it was Christina, and Meredith was with her. I saw all the pieces of the plane, some of it was on fire and there was this banging in the distance. They left to go see what was making the banging sound- it turned out to be Lexie, she um," her voice turned hollow now, "well i still don't really know what happened to her, but i think she was trapped somewhere because they didn't bring her body back to the camp after she died. Im not sure there was much to bring back after the first night anyway." Arizona paused while she brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her right knee because it was more comfortable than the cold metal reminder that was her left. "The forest came alive at night, in the Brothers' Grimm kind of way. Not the happy Disney interpretation of it either, but in the original psychotic german horror story kind of way. I kept waiting and waiting to be attacked by some feral wolf or something, i think Christina said that they were fighting over Lexie's body but i- that might have been a dream, I'm not sure.  
"Mark went with them to look for Derek and Lexie but my leg was... Well i couldn't walk, so i stayed behind." Arizona was looking nauseas so Callie put her hand over one wrapped around her legs as an anchor to keep her grip on reality but she didn't respond to it. "I ripped my pants open so i could assess my injury and there my femur was. That's when i met Jerry. He um, he heard me whimpering; i was sitting right outside the cockpit. I told him to stop moving, because he was trying to get out. Then he remembered that we were all surgeons and i laughed so hard from the irony of being married to an orthopedic surgeon with my leg how it was but then he said that he couldn't feel his legs and i- i stopped.  
"I was kind of glad to have Jerry there because Christina, Meredith and Mark were gone almost all day looking for Derek and Lexie-"  
"They left you alone all day!?" Callie exclaimed. "With an open femoral fracture, they left you alone?"  
"Callie." Arizona took her hand now, silently asking her to let it go. She waited for Callie's face to soften before carrying on. "Christina came back, after they found Lexie, to look for supplies. She gave me some things to strap my leg up with while she stabilized Jerry's C-spine-"  
"You strapped your leg by yourself?" The horror was evident on Callie's face, because she knew that a break like that was one of the most painful a person can endure even before beginning to reset the bones.  
"Yes." Arizona met Callie's gaze briefly before resuming the focus of her eyes on a far away place. Callie realized that it was time to keep quiet and just let Arizona speak.  
"Okay, what happened next?" She tried to keep her voice even.  
"I uh, i started coughing up blood." Arizona subconsciously examined her palms. "It made my hands really sticky. I was so annoyed that i didn't have any way to wash them. I tried not to touch my face or anything because i didn't want to increase my chance of infection but that kind of became a moot point the next morning when i saw the bugs burrowing into my thigh." Arizona paused upon hearing Callie's gasp but she didn't move to interrupt further. "Christina helped me pick them out all morning while Meredith and Derek tried to find us some food. I don't know how i didn't notice them crawling over me during the night, Christina kept shouting at us to stay awake. I guess she must have fallen asleep and then nobody else cared enough about staying conscious." Arizona paused again, but this time because she was trying to remember. "No, i don't think..." Arizona had imagines flashing through her head, melding together and forming distorted memories. She remembered parts of nights, each one forming into one collective so she couldn't tell one night from another. She remembered fear from the vicious yapping and grunting that had pierced the inky air. She remembered birds chirping to announce the first light of a new day. She remembered how the mania of the group culminated with each passing hour of consciousness; Meredith's continuous sobbing. The intermittent moan beside her reassuring her that Mark was still alive and the way she cursed Christina for not allowing them any rest throughout it all. "Maybe i just got delirious so i didn't notice." Arizona sighed. "Jerry said four hours. Four hours and they'd find us." Arizona laughed derisively at the actual length of their stay among the trees. "A chopper did come that day. Just when we were talking about how it had been too long. It flew right above us but the flair gun was broken. When the chopper flew away it took all of the hope we had of getting rescued with it." She took a moment to process the disappointment she still remembered being so bitter that day, before she realized that Callie's hand was resting on her left arm, her thumb rubbing slow circles on the smooth skin.  
"At one point you were there. You were fixing my leg for me, making everything better. You told me that i should be more careful when i'm wearing my Heely's and we laughed together at how clumsy i was. I thanked you; told you i loved you but you kept on laughing and then i started getting scared. I looked down at my leg right then and i saw you pouring insects into the wound and they were eating away like the termites in the cartoons. You laughed even harder when i started screaming. My leg was nothing but gleaming white bone by the time Meredith slapped me awake. Derek and Christina were watching me from a few feet away, i was so sure that they were all conspiring against me, the way they stared and i started hyperventilating. Meredith couldn't get me to calm down but then i heard Mark, he was really quiet but i heard him better than i heard anything Meredith said.  
He said, "I'm waiting for you, Arizona." I snapped right out of it. They gave me the last of the water because i was losing it." Arizona giggled right then, taking Callie aback. "I was losing it. I'm not sure i got it all back." Despite the dim light in the room Callie could see the primal gleam Arizona's eyes had taken. In that moment she felt like she finally understood that her Arizona was gone, she was changed. Her entire essence had taken on a different, much darker shade. Callie thought she had already known this from the first moment she found out that they'd found her alive in the woods but now she actually understood what it meant and some how it made her blame Arizona much less for everything that had happened since she boarded that plane.  
"I'm waiting too." Callie said and Arizona turned to meet ernest eyes. "I'm still waiting for you." She took her hand and they shared a moment of understanding, knowing that this was their starting line.

###

Callie lay on the pew in the hospital church, tears trickling down from her eyes but not bothering to wipe them away. She was tired because she had let Arizona take the bed the night before, taking the couch for herself, but she hadn't slept then and she wasn't prepared to sleep now because her mind was just too full of questions; of new realizations. She felt like she was in a web but every time she twanged a strand she got a hit full force with a searing pain for the little bit of freedom she'd achieved.  
Callie vaguely heard the church doors open slowly and the clack of heels draw nearer to her.  
"How did i know i'd find you here?" Came the chime of a confident voice laced with just the hint of teasing.  
"Now i'm the one hallucinating." Callie whispered sadly to herself.  
"Well i know many people who would be more than happy to have an hallucination as fabulous as me."  
"Addy!" Callie exclaimed, finally acknowledging that her friend was in fact beside her. She jumped up and wiped her face haphazardly before folding herself into the red head's warm embrace. "I can't believe you're here."  
"Well i've barely heard from you in three months, i had to come and see that you were still alive." Addison joked.  
Callie laughed knowingly but without a hint of humour, "If it wasn't for Mark i probably wouldn't be."  
"Is he another one of these hallucinations you were talking about?" She smirked to cover her genuine worry.  
"No nothing like that. It's just- it's like i can feel him sometimes you know?" She looked around vaguely as if to motion that he was in the air. "And when i was lying on his grave and my heart gave out, i know it was him who sent help."  
"Yes, thanks for the call to let me know how you were after that by the way." Addison pursed her lips.  
"Who told you?" Callie asked sheepishly, knowing full well that she hadn't been the one to inform her friend in any way regarding her latest escapade in a patient gown.  
"Was it Bailey?"  
"Actually it was Arizona." Addison said cautiously, noting how Callie's eyes widened briefly at her admission. "She called me yesterday saying that she was very worried about how you were coping especially considering how vulnerable your heart was. Imagine my surprise when i realized she was being literal."  
"Surprised enough to hop the next flight to Seattle?" Callie bared her teeth guiltily.  
"Just about, yes. I mean i was already planning on coming down here anyway since you've been dodging my calls for months." She donned a flawlessly didactic glare under which Callie buckled straight back down onto the pew.  
"I'm so sorry Addy." Callie buried her face in her hands, prompting Addison the sit beside her, holding her close with a strong arm draped around her shoulders.  
"I just don't understand why you didn't call me."  
Callie laughed, "what was i supposed to say? 'Hey Addy, just calling to let you know my heart stopped the other day while i was in the cemetery, but not to worry I'm doing fine now.'? No. No, that's embarrassing. Besides there was nothing you could have done anyway."  
"Sounds to me like you needed a friend. I could have done that. I could have been doing it this whole time. But stubborn old Callie has to do everything on her own." Addison replied wrapping her friend in her arms.  
"Not old." Callie grumbled, deflecting.  
"No. You're not. You're beautiful."  
Callie chuckled, resting her head on Addison's shoulder, enjoying the sensation of being held; of feeling safe for the first time in months. She realized how lonely she had been.  
"I betrayed her first..."  
"Callie-"  
"No, i did. I promised not to take her leg and then i did. I broke my promise. I betrayed her first."  
"You didn't deserve what she put you through, Callie."  
"She was in a plane crash. Do you know what that means? Because i thought i did until she told me about it and then i realized i had no idea. I spent a year equating it to my car crash. I mean i flew through a windshield, i hallucinated that everyone was singing for days. That's traumatic, you know. I thought i knew what it was like. I thought i understood. I had no idea. I got over my crash in a second, i thought about Sofia and i just got over it. She was my motivation. She was my hope. Because despite it all i was okay and Sofia was okay and at the end of the day i could believe that everything was going to be okay. But what if Sofia had died?"  
"Sofia is fine-"  
"No. What if she had died?" Callie sat up straight, staring Addison defiantly in the eye. "I would never have forgiven Arizona. I would have blamed her every day, even though she didn't put that truck there. She didn't undo my seatbelt. I would never have gotten over it. Arizona's leg was her hope, her Sofia, and her Sofia died. I cut it off. I sat in the woods and laughed at her while she listened to wild animals eat Lexie and then i took her hope and wrapped it in a biohazard bag and gave it to the trash man."  
"Callie, you didn't put her on that plane. You didn't cause the engine to fail and you didn't break her leg. None of this is your fault."  
"And to top it off, i brushed it off everyday like it was nothing because i didn't understand any of it. I listened to her cry and scream in her sleep and i was selfish enough to count it as my own punishment for breaking my promise, like i deserved to watch as the love of my life unravelled because i broke her and all the while i didn't stop to try and figure out how to help her."  
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Callie. You did try. I know you did, because you told me about it every day when we spoke. Every time you had a new plan, a new angle. It's not your fault that she refused to talk about it or go to therapy. It's not your fault that she pushed you away. She had to want help first before you could be the one to give her any."  
"All i wanted was my, sweet, happy, sparkly Arizona back. I kind of thought that ignoring it would help her get better, like we could pretend it didn't happen and somehow she could just find a way to be sparkly again." Callie's eyes welled up in tears. "God, i am just so stupid."  
"Look i'm a cheater. I've cheated on almost everyone I've ever been with. I'm not entirely sure what it is about me to compel me to be such a horrible person. I think i'm a little bit of a masochist, like i kind of get off on screwing myself over. When i cheated on Derek it was a long time coming. We got bitter and we let each other become lonely. And then i cheated on Pete with Sam and Sam with Pete. I didn't know what i wanted, i was a little bit crazy and actually quite a lot selfish. But you know, once i met Jake that part of me changed completely. Somehow i knew he was my end game. He was the one i'd been waiting for my whole life and i knew that i wouldn't do anything to screw that up."  
"That was Arizona for me until... I thought that we were past the hard stuff, things were getting better, we were getting closer. I thought we were different but it still happened. I believe in love, Addy. I do believe in second chances. I always have, i hope i always will. I feel like i can look past this because i see where the blame lies on me but i need her back and i don't know if she's coming. I don't know if i deserve her back either; i tried to let her go, to push her away but she says she still wants this. I really, i just don't know what to do."  
"So what are you doing in the chapel?" Addison asked, in an attempt to digress.  
"I didn't have any one else to talk to: Mark's dead-"  
"You were avoiding me."  
Callie pursed her lips and ignored Addison's teasing despite shifting guiltily beside her.  
"And Arizona... She's gone. Sometimes i can't even remember what she was like before the crash. So God is who i chose to talk to, He was my last hope, but even He can't tell me whether i should stay and fight or just let her go."  
"I think, maybe sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same."  
"Maybe i need her."  
"You just have to stop comparing her to somebody who isn't here anymore."

###

Dr. Bailey was in the ambulance bay waiting for an incoming. She was finally ready to take on solo cases. As it pulled up she took a few deep breaths to psyche herself up and find that old Nazi essence lying with in her.  
"What have we got?" She addressed the paramedic.  
"52 year old man, presents with severe abdominal pain and bloating. Coughing up blood."  
"Okay, sir. I'm Dr. Miranda Bailey, can you tell me your name?" She asked while she ran his gurney into E.R. Trauma room 3.  
The man had thinning white hair and a sheen of sweat covering his skin. His arms were clutching a distended stomach and his face was screwed up in pain."  
"Dr. Vlad Jacobsson." He gasped.  
"Dr. Jacobsson, can you tell me what happened?" She motioned for Dr. Ross and an intern to help her lift the man onto the bed.  
"I was conducting a human trail for a type of melanoma treatment i've been developing." He heaved every word out with consistently hoarse panting.  
"Let's start him on fluids, give him two of morphine. Once he's calmed down i want you to give him a full work up." She addressed Dr. Ross. "Sir, i'm going to need to perform an exam on your abdomen to determine the nature of your condition. I'm gonna need you to try and relax okay."  
He nodded his consent and she motioned for another two interns to hold his arms back to give her room to work.  
She cut his shirt off skillfully, revealing a raised purple welt along the left of his gut, about 10 centimeters (4 inches) in diameter. She touched it tenderly causing the man to welp loudly in pain.  
"Another two of morphine." She instructed the nurse. Dr. Bailey waited a few seconds for the drugs to fully kick in before continuing. Once she could see his pulse decrease on the monitor she resumed examining his abdomen.  
"What exactly is this treatment, Dr. Jacobsson?"  
"It's an embedded device containing the patients cancer cells meant to reprogramme the bodies own immune system to seek out and kill the cancer." He slurred happily from his drug induced stupor.

###

Addison had convinced Callie that she needed to eat something. They sat in the cafeteria, Addison munching away eagerly as Callie caught her up on all the latest gossip in the hospital. She clutched a cup of coffee in both of her hands, taking occasional sips but her own tray of food lay entirely untouched.  
"Hey, Dr. Montgomery." Alex said warmly. "What brings you to Seattle?"  
"Dr. Karev." She smiled. "I thought it was about time i came to visit, see how everyone is doing. I hear you're finally seeing someone."  
"Yeah." He chuckled. "Her name's Jo, she's a resident here. Hey, if your not doing anything, i have a preeclampsia case i could use some help on."  
"Preeclampsia hey?" Her eyes took a mischievous gleam causing Callie and Alex to scrunch their eyebrows in confusion. "I'll tell you what Karev, you give me 'primary physician' on this case and i won't tell Jo about our sexual history."  
"What? You can't just snake my case from me!"  
"Oh come on Alex, i just want to take the opportunity to see what it's like here these days. You know work with some new people that i haven't had a chance to spend some quality time with yet."  
"Oh no!" Callie had finally caught on to her friend's plan. "Alex, tell her no. Tell her no or, or- or i'll tell Jo that you slept with me too!" She said frantically.  
"Am i missing something here?" He asked, while subconsciously retreating a few steps.  
"Alex." Addison probed.  
"Alex!" Callie warned.  
"Fine. You can have it." He caved, prompting a wide grin to appear on Addison's face as she scurried off to her patient.  
"Dammit Alex!" Callie yelled.  
"Oh whatever. You're gay, Jo told me she tried to sleep with you once too." Callie donned a fiery expression and mimicked crushing his face with her hand before running after Addison.  
"That's the last time i offer someone in on one of my cases." He shook his head before slumping down in a chair.  
"Addison. Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery! You stop right there." Callie shouted as she chased after her friend.  
"What?" She asked innocently, pausing for Callie to draw level.  
"Don't you dare interfere. You will not talk to her, do you hear me? You will say nothing." She warned, wagging her finger in her friends face.  
"I think the patient might feel a little uneasy if i refuse to talk to her." Addison smirked.  
"Oh don't play dumb with me! You know we're talking about Arizona! Promise me you wont interfere?" She whispered frantically so as not to draw as much attention.  
"Fine." She raised her hands in surrender. "Fine, i promise i won't say anything unless she brings it up herself."  
Callie glared at her for a second to make sure she was telling the truth. "Good."

###

Arizona sat on a plush, brown two seater couch fiddling with her hands and facing a woman with bushy brown hair and spectacles. The woman held a notepad on which she was jotting as she perched on her own lavish armchair. The room was dimly lit and fairly cozy but it still held a clinical sense, evident in the roughly neatened desk on one side and the certificates that adorned the walls.  
"I didnt tell her about mark."  
"Why not?"  
"I don't know if she's strong enough to hear it." Arizona addressed Dr. Weaver without making eye contact. "But also i don't know if I'm strong enough to tell her."  
"And why is that?"  
"I feel responsible."  
"For his death?"  
"Yes."  
"Is there anything you could have done differently to save him?"  
"I- no. Not medically. No."  
"Then?"  
"I just... I feel like i didn't try hard enough to convince him that he wanted to stay alive. They way he spoke about Lexie waiting for him... I mean he's Mark, the perpetual bachelor." She exclaimed exasperatedly. "He wasn't supposed to die like that, with a broken heart. That's not who he was." She paused, meeting Dr. Weaver dead in the eyes and lowering her voice from a yell to a whisper. "I realized too late that he wasn't who i thought he was."  
"So you feel guilty?"  
"Of course i feel guilty!" Arizona took a few deep breaths. "And then the day Callie came home and told me he was dead, i yelled at her and sent her away because i felt so bitter that he got to die and i had to live with one leg. I made her grieve on her own."  
"We've been having sessions for almost three months now and you've made some good progress, Arizona, i'll admit that but there are some things you still haven't seen, maybe that you're ignoring and i think they're your biggest problem. So, for the sake of your progress, here's what i've learned about you: you get scared." Dr. Weaver paused slightly in case Arizona wanted to interject as well as adding gravity to the statement. "You do. You like your life the way it is right now because you're comfortable and you get scared when threatened with change. Probably, because you were a military child and you did move every 18 months. You crave stability and when anything comes along to threaten that you get scared and you walk away. But when you actually suck it up and do that thing that scares you, you find that you love it 9 times out of 10, don't you? You said no to Callie at first and now she's your wife. You didn't want a child and now you brag about her in every session you have with me. You didn't want to buy the hospital but it turned out to be one of the best things you've ever done." She shrugged, palms raised, eyeing Arizona over the top rim of her spectacles.  
"But you try your best to sabotage all of these things, to prevent them from happening until you're forced to confront them; you're impulsive too and that's a dangerous combination for you, i think. If we look at all the impulsive decisions you've made we can see that. You left Callie in an airport. You kicked Alex off the flight to Boise and took his place. You slept with another woman."  
"Im not saying that you should stop being spontaneous altogether because it's also been good for you. You may not have ended up with Callie if you hadn't caught her attention in that bathroom. You wouldn't have left Malawi to come back for her after you left. That's how you got engaged too. But there's a pattern here, a very destructive pattern, not only for you either but for Callie most specifically. Every time you feel the compulsion to escape something Callie always gets hurt, wouldn't you agree?" Dr. Weaver didn't wait for a response. "So, i think you would benefit greatly from being more open minded about the new things in your life like accepting your wife's best friend instead of labeling him as the man who couldn't love only to find him crumpled by a broken heart in the very end. And you need to be able able to recognize your destructive patterns so that you can stop yourself before you hurt Callie again because otherwise the two of you will never work and any future relationship you may have will not work either. I can see that Callie's good for you. You've told me that yourself. It's time for you to start being good for her."  
Arizona took a few seconds to drink in everything her therapist had said.  
"You know i never saw this as my life, i mean i always knew i'd marry a woman and that i'd be a surgeon, but the rest of it?" Arizona shook her head. "It was never what I pictured my life to be."  
"Life never turns out the way we want it to, Arizona."  
"Callie's did."  
"You told me that Callie didn't realize her homosexuality until well into her residency, that must have made a large adjustment to the way she saw her life panning out?"  
"Yeah i guess it did." Arizona thought back to how her life with Callie had begun, remembering specifically the things that had changed in Callie's life- the estrangement from her family, George's death, the unplanned pregnancy. "I guess Callie's life didn't really go the way she wanted it to either."  
"So why did you think it did?"  
"She's always seemed so happy, so okay with everything."  
"Perhaps she's just better at accepting change and finding the hope buried within life's challenges?"  
"You're right. Callie's made of silver linings." Arizona smiled, lovingly before turning her head away and laughing at herself. At Dr. Weaver's quizzical look she elaborated.  
"It's just ironic because everyone always labels me as the perky one, you know, but it's Callie. She's the optimist." Arizona sighed. "She deserves better than me."

###

Dr. Bailey stood in the scrub room, staring into the O.R., her hands resting on the edge of the sink, propping her body up. The room smelled clinical, just like the rest of the hospital, but just slightly more concentrated. The smell had always reminded her more of chemicals than of cleanliness but over the years she had become conditioned to ignore it. In the past weeks however she had become reacquainted with it, partly because of her prolonged absence from the O.R. but also because her latest personal meltdown had led her to question the entire hospital itself. It was no longer the enablement of her muse, much of the wonder had drained away. She found she didn't trust the place anymore just as much as she'd lost the confidence in herself. Dr. Bailey didn't notice as Dr. Ross walked in, but she was snapped out of her reverie as he began speaking.  
"Come on Dr. Bailey. You've got this. You're a god." He enthused, sensing her hesitation.  
"Shut up." She chastised half-heartedly. He stayed quiet as he scrubbed but just before walking into the O.R. he offered one last sentiment.  
"You saved Dr. Grey weeks ago. She's still absolutely fine. And she wouldn't be if it wasn't for you. You made sure Bailey had a mom there to tuck him in every night."  
Bailey waited until he was out of sight before she exhaled slowly and began scrubbing, not waiting him to see how his words had helped her.  
After opening the patient, they found the device surrounded by a large abscess burrowing deep into the flesh.  
"Oh my god." Dr. Bailey breathed. "Why did this man wait so long before coming to get help. He must have been in agony for days."  
"I guess people can take a lot of pain for what they believe in." Dr. Ross shrugged.  
"He's borderline septic. This whole kidney's destroyed and his bowel is turning necrotic before my very eyes." She shook her head but she was completely focussed on the task at hand, having forgotten her own fears in the face of the man's situation.  
"So where do we start?"  
"Well Ross, i thought i'd take care of this abscess and then i'd have you remove this kidney while i resect the necrotic bowel."  
"Me?" She asked excitedly, but also with a hint of hesitation. "You want me to remove a kidney?"  
"Don't pee your pants Ross. I figure you can handle it, being so similar to what you did when we worked on Dr. Grey together. Just ligate the organ body from it's ligamentous attachments, tie off the renal vein and artery and dissect it out. I'll be right here to help you if you get stuck."  
"Thank you so much Dr. Bailey."  
"Mmhmm. Just don't disappoint me."  
"Oh i so wont."  
She smiled surreptitiously behind her scrub cap at the residents ease of elation.

###

"Hey Alex, what'd you ne-" Dr. Robbins began as she entered the patient's room only to be met with a far less familiarly piercing stare. "Oh, Dr. Montgomery, i had no idea you were here. Um where's Dr. Karev?"  
"I ran into him earlier in the cafeteria, he asked me to take this case from him as a favour. I think he felt a little out of his depth." She smirked at her sly dissemblance. "Anyway, i thought perhaps you would to give me a hand?"  
"Oh." Arizona's disconcertion increased with every passing second under Addison's steely gaze, it didn't help that she knew that Alex would never in a million years pawn one of his cases off so easily. "Um sure, what did you need?"  
"I thought we could go to your office and discuss the possibility of a premature delivery." She spoke while heading purposefully out of the room, discarding her surgical gloves as she went. Arizona took the hint and led the way to her quarters.  
"What's the patients status right now?"  
"She's stable but deteriorating. I noted the beginnings of stage one invasion facial twitching and treated with 5g of magnesium over 20 minutes supplemented by hourly doses of 2g as a continuous infusion."  
"Is she being monitored for neurological depression?"  
"Yes i put Brooks on her. I also have her doing a CBC, renal and liver function, plasma rate and urine analysis."  
"And the baby?" Arizona gestured for Addison to sit as they entered her office, trying her best to ignore the judgmental smirk across from her. She settled in for what was sure to be a long consultation.

After over and hour in her office, dodging ambivalent digs and wading through the foggy tension projected by Addison, Arizona found herself at the second floor nurses station familiarizing herself with the patients file. They had decided to deliver the baby that evening to avoid the growing possibility of fetal hypoxia or intercranial haemorrage in the mother.  
"What's got you looking so stressed out?" Dr. Bailey asked as she took a chart for herself in which to make notes.  
"I think Addison Montgomery's trying to kill me via telekinesis." She replied dramatically.  
"What'd you do, steal her husband?" Miranda sniggered.  
"Oh, ha! Ha! No, i'm pretty sure it's entirely about Callie and how i-"  
"Oh no, I'm going to stop you right there. I know far to much about that girl's life story already, i do not need to hear the next chapter of the Callie Chronicles."  
"Maybe that's for the best, you would probably judge me too."  
"What's Addison doing on this side of the world anyway?"  
"I'm pretty sure she's just here for Callie but somehow she snaked her way onto a preeclampsia case and insisted i work on it with her, probably in order to glare at me all day. So i'm just reviewing the file before we go into the O.R. What have you got?"  
Bailey chuckled, "I've got a man who surgically implanted a clinical device into his abdomen by himself which then caused an abscess so large it killed one of his kidneys and a good part of his bowel. I tell you, i've seen people do some crazy things in my time, but this man really took the term 'mad scientist' literally."  
"At least he was happy while his mind was gone. Maybe i should lose my mind, it might be easier." Arizona mused. "Sitting in a padded room, i could pretend the walls were made of marshmallows. I wouldn't have to take a bath everyday. Ooh and i'd never have to put on pants!"  
"Are you sure you haven't already lost your mind?" Dr. Bailey shook her head and walked away.

###

Dr. Bailey walked into her patient's room intending to perform her post-op exam but instead found the man weeping openly into his pillow. Immediately she assumed that somehow she'd messed up the surgery that she thought had gone so well.  
"Dr. Jacobsson, what's the matter? Are you in pain? Let me check your incision site."  
"Oh, no. No, Dr. Bailey I'm not in any physical pain. I feel a great deal better than i did this morning." He replied kindly, trying to calm himself to lessen her discomfort.  
"Well then, why are you crying sir?" It wasn't usually the type of question she would ask, preferring to keep herself out of the personal lives of absolutely everyone else in the world, but she found herself craving the reassurance that it truly wasn't something that she had done wrong.  
"My whole life's work. Everything i've worked for for so many years. Gone, worthless. Completely wasted. Do you have any idea how hollow life becomes when everything you believed in for so long suddenly becomes null and void without any warning?"  
Miranda took a second to consider the man's thoughts, knowing full-well how it felt, but in a shining moment she decided that she didn't want it to be true anymore. Remembering back to her residency she renewed her decision to be strong, to take control and to live life by her own standards; she didn't like quiet little Mandy back then and she refused to become her again.  
"You made a mistake. That's no reason to throw everything you believed in out the window. Sounds more to me like an opportunity to try harder, some motivation. So go back to the drawing board at look at it again because the science is there you just read it wrong." She looked at him intently. "Just next time maybe get an actual surgeon to implant the damn thing." She finished with a motherly pursing of the lips.

###

Arizona was filling in post-op notes on the preeclampsia baby's chart at the nurses station, grateful that her day was 15 minutes away from being over. Her nerves were fried and she was emotionally and physically exhausted. In her periphery, she caught the glamorous swagger of Addison Montgomery turn the corner on her way down the hallway to leave through the doors of the Paeds unit that were just behind Arizona. Addison's eyes locked onto hers in a second, carrying the ever-present glare that had painted her face all day. Arizona couldn't ignore it any longer, it was driving her mad.  
"Okay, i know i screwed up. I know i ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. i know, okay. I know!" She blurted out as Addison drew level with her, stopping to listen to what the blonde had to say. Her face slowly morphed from murderously judgmental into a gentle but triumphant smirk.  
"Look i know I'm one to talk, I'm a cheater too. I'm practically the queen of the cheaters but i love Callie and she's been through hell and i for one don't want to see her hurting anymore. So as your queen, you need to decide if she's still what you want and if she isn't, you need to let her go because i swear to god, if you hurt her one more time i'll have your head." Addison smiled sweetly before walking away, a confident sway in her hips accentuating the authority she carried.

###

People spend a lot of time hoping. There are a lot of people who see it as naive, preferring to live outside of fantasy, but i see a lot of joy in being hopeful, in rooting for life to go the way you want it to; in defining your story by your own standards. I hope for peace. I hope for love and i hope for a better tomorrow because, quite frankly, i don't know how else i would get through today.


	8. Before i die

8. Before i die

When you cut somebody, tearing them open, it initiates the scarring process. The tissue is damaged and so it seeks to repair itself quickly, but the tissue doesn't take the time and care to weave itself intricately the way it was before. No, It takes the easy way out by bridging the gap between the flesh in the quickest way possible. It does this in order to protect the body, taking a calculated risk by sacrificing the integrity of the flesh in order to prevent infection as quickly as possible. As surgeons we deal a lot with scars. A lot of the time people feel ashamed of them, i remember i felt that way once too but then one day i was watching Red Dragon and i wont ever forget how conflicted i felt about getting one of my favourite piece of advice from a psychopathic cannibal, but at one point Hannibal Lector was speaking, "Be grateful." He said. "Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real."

Arizona walked across the hallway and knocked on the blue door marked 502. She had been staying in Mark's apartment ever since she had resumed speaking terms with Callie. She felt haunted inside it, she felt guilty. It spoke of many things she had neglected to see in the man while she'd known him and it spoke of all the things she had forced Callie to endure all those months ago.

His apartment was very minimalist, much more resembling her own apartment as it had been before she had inflicted her influence upon it; chrome and edgy, but it was the little details that stood out to her the most. He had three picture frames in the entire place: one of himself and Callie, one with Derek as his best man at his first wedding and the last was one with Sofia flanked by her two moms. They, all three, sat on his mantle piece in his lounge. There were no pictures of family anywhere, no friends from outside of the hospital- it reminded Arizona of his words the day that his grandson had been born regarding the state of his family, how he didn't have one.

On her first night, she opened the bedside drawer meaning to stow some belongings away, but instead she found two more pictures. The first of himself tenderly kissing Lexie on the cheek while she grinned widely at his playfulness; love clearly evident between them.  
The second, however, was of Arizona herself, her hair tied and disheveled, wearing one of the pink gowns found in the NICU and holding baby Sofia. Arizona remembered the exact moment vividly, it was the first picture they had taken of Sofia, just after she'd opened her eyes for the first time. She'd stared up at Arizona with the exact shade of chocolate brown that made her swoon every time she looked at Callie.

"Oh, uh hey." Callie said as she opened the door, even laced with the slight tinge of pain, her eyes still had the same effect on Arizona.  
"Morning, Callie." She smiled gently. The energy between them was awkward, they were in a sort of limbo between hating each other and being okay again. It left them both utterly unaware of how to regard the other and so they chose extreme civility as the course of action.  
"Um, is everything okay?"  
"Yeah, everything's fine." She replied slowly, still caught up in Callie's eyes, but as her expression turned expectant Arizona finally remembered why she had knocked on the door. "Oh, um i found something, the other day, in Mark's apartment. I mean i wasn't snooping around or anything, i was just trying to put some of my things away but i've since found there's not really anywhere to put anything. So i'm still kinda living out of my travel bag but-"  
"Arizona."  
"Oh right. Here, this! I found this." She handed Callie the photograph. "It's the first picture we ever took of Sofia; the first time i ever held her. I thought you might want it." She watched as Callie's gaze softened remarkably in response to the image.

"Um, why? It uh, it seems like it would mean more to you?"  
"Because of the way your eyes teared up when you saw it just now." Arizona smiled knowingly, making Callie chuckle lightly. She wiped at her eyes carefully, but feeling how much moisture was present, she knew it was a lost cause.  
"I guess i'm gonna have to fix my make up. Do you wanna come in, see Sofia for a minute?" She asked hesitantly.  
Arizona nodded, following Callie inside as she made her way to the bathroom. She found Sofia on the sitting room floor, building a tall tower out of colourful, wooden blocks. The infant smiled at the arrival of her momma, but continued her endeavour of placing yet another block atop the rickety column. Arizona lowered herself gingerly to the floor, slumping heavily down the last few inches and sat cross-legged beside her daughter. Unfortunately Arizona's heavy movement caused the tower to collapse. Sofia, surprisingly, was entirely amused by the destruction. She clapped and giggled, looking expectantly at her momma to make it happen again; so Arizona pulled the little girl into her lap and helped her rebuild the pillar in order to knock it down again.  
"You know i get off early tomorrow, i thought maybe i could take Sofia to the park and maybe we could feed the ducks. Do you think that would be okay?" She asked as Callie reemerged.

The situation with their daughter was strained to say the least. Quite frankly, Arizona just didn't know where she stood anymore. She was legally her guardian having completed the adoption long ago, but deep down inside she knew that Sofia was Callie's child and a part of her wondered if she would still be allowed in her life especially if thing's didn't work out with Callie in the end.  
"Sure, yeah." She replied politely. "How does that sound, Sof, you wanna feed the ducks with mamma tomorrow?" Callie crouched in front of her, drawing her attention in. Sofia might have been able to speak and quite well at that when she wanted to, but lately it s something she refused to do. She opted for the much more simple method of gesticulation, grinning at Callie and then pointing at her questioningly.  
"No, Sof. Just you and momma."  
She shook her head wildly, frustrated. The separation had been particularly difficult on Sofia, there was no way she could understand why suddenly her entire routine had been turned upside down with one of her moms now always being missing for extended periods of time.  
"You know, you could come with us if you wanted to. I wouldn't mind and it would be good for her."  
Callie deliberated for a second, checking for sincerity in Arizona's eyes, "Really?"  
"Mmhmm." She nodded.  
"Okay, Sof. We'll all gonna go feed the ducks tomorrow." There weren't many things Callie loved more than indulging her mischievous toddler and when she nodded her head enthusiastically at the following day's plan, Callie couldn't help the smile the overtook her face. She choose to celebrate by eliciting Sofia's own smile to grow bigger by means of tender tickles.  
Their silliness was cut short by a ringing phone. Knowing it was hers, Callie got up to answer it, but only after smooching her child sloppily on the cheek.  
"Hello?.. Yes this is she." She listened for a few moments, her eyebrows rising gradually until she made her way, slowly, to the couch and sat, hand covering her agape mouth.

"Callie whats wrong? Who was that?" Arizona implored as she put down the phone.  
"That um, that was the Harper Avery Foundation." Callie replied breathlessly, a stunned grin slowly spreading across her face. "My cartilage research is being nominated for this years award."  
"Oh my god! No way!" Arizona chanced a haphazard hug, but pulled away quickly in the awkwardness. "Um we should celebrate?"  
"Yeah, this is definitely worth celebrating."  
"How about dinner? Tonight, my treat?"  
"Um, yeah. You know what, why not."  
"Great. I'll meet you in the lobby at six?"  
"Okay." Callie nodded.  
"Okay." Arizona beamed. The spark of the moment fading rapidly until they were just staring at each other with uncomfortable smiles. "Um, well i should get going. I'll see you later."  
Callie nodded and watched as she turned to walk out the door.  
"Arizona?" She turned. "Thank you. For the photograph." She smiled, and continued out.

###

Yang and Brooks met the ambulance as it came in, the doors opened to reveal a thin man with short edgy black hair and multiple tattoos and piercings breathing deeply from the oxygen mask as he lay on the gurney. He looked severely pissed off. As he laid eyes on the doctors he pulled the mask from his face.  
"I'm fine, i just passed out. It was nothing. I need to get back, we have a gig tonight we have to do sound check."  
"Ooh what's your band's name?" Brooks asked happily.  
"Blood Fusion. You should come check us out tonight. 9 o'clock at Rusty Hook." He winked.  
"Come, Mousy." Yang ordered as they wheeled the man into the E.R. "Uh, Mr. Blake, my name is Dr. Yang, this is Dr. Brooks, the EMT said that you passed out and your friends insisted that you'd overdosed on crack." Dr. Yang addressed the man with a sense of bored indifference.  
"No way man. I've just been feeling sick lately is all. I've got the flu and i just passed out. Im fine."  
"Well we're gonna run some tests anyway. Tell me about this flu?" She asked as they transferred him into a bed and returned the gurney the the paramedics.  
Christina motioned for Dr. Brooks to perform the preliminary exam while she questioned him.  
"Eh fever, oh, but i also get cold. Um, headaches; my whole body just aches actually, and it's hard to breathe sometimes. Flu!"  
"Dr. Yang it sounds like he has a heart murmur, and he's showing signs of abdominal tenderness."  
"How do we proceed, Dr. Brooks?"  
"Um EKG, CT and blood cultures?"  
"Good job, Mousy. Page me when they're done." Yang walked straight from the room.  
"Why does she call you Mousy?" Mr. Blake asked.  
"I like to think that it's because i'm quiet." She smiled at him thoughtfully. "You know, 'quiet as a church mouse'." She elaborated, but his face remained incredulous.

###

Callie was waiting in the lobby at 6 o clock, ready to meet Arizona for their dinner that evening. She had opted for a simple black dress, strapless and reaching mid-thigh; just tight enough to show off every curve. Her hair was wavy, cascading over her shoulders with an edge that only Callie could pull off. Her eyes were smokey, her heels were strappy and her leather jacket hung casually over her left arm.  
Arizona made her way down the stairs, she had put in special effort to dress provocatively for Callie, but she felt just a little uneasy with how short her dress was. It was light grey, with a slight sheen making it shimmer as it caught the light. The sweetheart neckline was tight at her chest, pushing her cleavage up into an irresistible rise and the wisps of her rippled golden hair just tickled the tops.  
Her heels were black and sexy but none too sheer; still high enough to accentuate the ass she knew Callie loved.

She tried to push the nagging concern from her mind of just how obvious it was that her left leg was made of plastic, it made her just a little uneasy of the people that noticed her as she walked past. Were they looking because she was hot or because she was the pitiful cripple playing dress up? Alex was on his way up the stairs, working intently on his ipad. As they drew level he noticed bare legs, a lustful smirk adorned his face as he slowly followed them up to their source. Upon reaching Arizona's face and realizing just who he had been checking out he fumbled, nearly dropping his ipad, a bright red blush shading his face. Arizona's eyebrows were raised in amusement, but her head was cocked to the side and her mouth was set gently showing her ever-present vulnerability.  
"Oh, Dr. Robbins! I uh, um i-" he shook his head giving up. "No, you know what, i'm not gonna apologize, you look hot. Maybe you don't want to hear that from me because i'm a dude. But i can't help it, i'm a dude and you look hot." He scowled and resumed walking up the stairs before Arizona could reply.  
"Hey, Alex?" She called after him.  
"What?"  
"Thank you." His scowl softened and he nodded before continuing on his way.

Arizona made the rest of the way towards Callie feeling slightly more confident. She was determined to shower her in all of the charm she had, they might not have said that this was a date but Arizona was sure as hell going to act like it was.  
As Arizona drew closer, the pair locked eyes, taking each other in.  
"Wow." They spoke simultaneously, both a little breathless, before chuckling at the shared thought.  
"You look gorgeous, Callie."  
"Me? Ha! You should have seen how everyone's jaw dropped as you walked past." She replied, taking another lingering glance down Arizona's body. "Some of them are still drooling."  
Arizona blushed but made sure to keep her hands to herself as she motioned for Callie to follow her. "Come on, we have reservations." She made sure to walk slightly ahead of Callie to give her the full view. She wasn't certain, but she could have sworn she heard a subtle gasp from her. Arizona couldn't help but close her eyes briefly to cling to her composure and keep herself from tearing up; Alex's compliment earlier had meant a lot to Arizona in aiding her confidence but the knowledge that Callie still found her attractive meant more to her than she could ever convey.  
As they walked through the parking lot, Callie was momentarily confused when Arizona bypassed her car and walked straight up to a big blue pick up truck before opening Callie's door for her.  
"I got Christina to make Owen swap cars with me for the night." She shrugged at Callie's questioning hesitation.  
"Okay." Callie said slowly, absolutely not understanding why they would even need a truck to go to dinner. "Are you and Christina friends now? Because you talk about her a lot these days." Callie asked as she got into her seat.  
"Yeah." Arizona smiled, sliding into her own seat beside Callie. "She's been really helpful. I never knew she was so deep."  
"We are talking about Christina Yang right?"  
"Of course." She chuckled.  
"It's really weird."  
Arizona just shrugged in response, before starting the car and reversing out of the parking space.

"I thought we going to dinner?" Callie asked as Arizona turned onto a dirt road adorned by tall leafy trees, fifteen minutes later.  
"We are."  
"Are you taking me camping because you hate camping and quite frankly I'm not much of a fan either." Callie asked skeptically.  
Arizona just smirked and continued driving. She parked at a line of trees just inside a clearing and got out to open Callie's door, carefully leading her around the front of the truck.  
"Close your eyes for me okay. I want this to be a surprise but i kind of forgot to bring a blindfold."  
Callie hesitates for a second before nodding her head and obeying the request. Arizona takes Callie's hand and begins leading her around the trees.  
"Don't worry baby, i got you." She whispers as Callie's grip on her hand tightens, using her thumb to reinforce her sentiment by gently caressing Callie's. Even though intimacy, even as subtle as this, has been tentative since the storm it still sent their hearts aflutter, the way their hands still felt at home together, the gentle warmth emanating into the other. Fingers laced together, only realizing how lonely they had been in feeling the fulfilling embrace surrounding them. Callie felt a tugging in her chest, she wanted nothing more than to melt into Arizona and just be happy again. That desire alone terrified her completely.

After another few meters, Arizona drew them to a halt, tugging gently on Callie's arm. "Okay," she said. "You can open your eyes."  
Callie stayed silent at first, allowing herself a few moments to take in Arizona's construct. It was a clear night, the waning moon throwing light over the entire clearing. The summery warmth prevented a chill from disrupting the mood. It was a simple scene, borne centuries ago in the hearts of romantics, a lone table, candlelit and intimately awaiting two.  
"What did you do?" Callie awed voice was but a whisper as they resumed their walk to the table.  
"A couple weeks ago a little girl came into the E.R., long story short her appendix burst but i managed to save her. Her dad turned out to be the executive chef at La Petite Poulet and well..." She gestured to the setting before pulling Callie's chair out for her and sitting down herself.  
"He did this for you?"  
"Yeah." Arizona smiled nervously.  
"Wow, this has got to be the cheesiest thing anyone has ever done for me." A grin making it clear just how touched Callie was by it.  
Just then a young man wearing a stark white, button-down shirt and a black apron extending down from his waist appeared holding a bottle of Sauvignon blanc.

"Ladies, my name is James. I'll be your server this evening." He greeted them both before turning his attention specifically to Arizona. "Wine for the first course, madame." He showed her the label, awaiting her approval before pouring for the both of them and placing the bottle on the table. "The first course will be out in just a few minutes, is there anything i can get you in the mean time?"  
"No, thank you, James." Arizona politely dismissed him.  
"5 star." Callie raised her eyebrows clearly impressed.  
"I thought the occasion deserved it." Arizona replied, lifting her glass. "A toast to, Calliope Torres, Harper Avery nominee. You're amazing." Callie gave a thin smile, clinking her glass against Arizona's and taking a generous sip.  
James reappeared with the first course, laying each plate in front of them, "An amuse bouche of seared scallops with lime, jalepēno aioli." He announced, nodding to each of them and retreating back into the shadows. After the first course was cleared, James reappeared with more wine; this time a Chardonnay, and repeated the same process from before after which he brought out the appetizers.  
"Quiche Florentine with micro salad and balsamic vinaigrette."  
"You know i don't understand half of what that boy says but whatever it is, it tastes amazing." Callie enthused causing Arizona to giggle lightly.  
Next they were given given raspberry sorbet as a palate cleanser before the main course of filet mignon au pan jus and lyonnaise potatoes accompanied by a 2010 merlot.  
"Finally some red wine!" Callie joked.  
"Pace yourself, i've got something special planned for dessert." Arizona replied mysteriously. Callie narrowed her eyes playfully at her suspicious behaviour but decided not to press for details.  
"Don't worry, after years of living with Christina i'm pretty confident i can hold my own."

Callie was the last to finish her entree, just after she set her knife and fork perpendicular to herself on the plate, James returned again. "Ladies, if you would follow me please."  
Arizona winked at Callie's skeptically raised eyebrows but offered no explanation as they made their way further into the clearing. They came to a stop beside Owen's pick up, Callie hadn't even noticed it being moved earlier- she decided that they must have gone around the trees and brought it in from the back of the clearing. James stood by the back of the truck and opened the tail gate, and positioned a plastic step on the ground below it.  
"Your dessert awaits." He said, gesturing into the flat bed and then taking Arizona's hand to help her up into it. Callie stared blankly at the strange behaviour, only waking up to mirror Arizona at her beckoning. She walked forward and allowed James to help her up as well. Inside the flat bed were an array of plush, colourful pillows and blankets on which Arizona was sitting. A tray lay to the side holding various petit fours as well as what appeared to be sliced lime and a salt cruet.  
She looked back at Arizona and noticed she was holding a square bottle labelled in blue and silver, perfectly matching Arizona's dress and eyes.  
"If you require anything else, i will be by the tree line with the chef. I will be on stand-by to drive you home once you are ready. Please enjoy the rest of your evening." James smiled before retreating once again.  
"Jose Cuervo?" Callie asked as she sat beside Arizona.  
"This is one of the best places in the city to see the stars. The sky's so clear you can see so many of them. It seemed like a good idea at first but now that we're here i can't bring myself to take my eyes off of you to look at them."  
"Since when do you drink tequila?" She asked as Arizona poured them each a shot before handing Callie the salt.

Callie was starting to feel slightly panicked, she had spent the entire evening trying to keep the conversation light, to keep from melting for Arizona because she still didn't trust her. She didn't want to crumble and open herself up again just to be hurt once more. The memory of the pain helped sharpen her focus, but she had always been weak for her; despite how hard she'd ever tried in the past to stand tall for herself. Arizona was her weakness, she could never say no and she knew that, but Arizona, this Arizona, most resembled the woman that she had lost to the plane. The woman she had craved unabashedly for so long and she was laying it on thick tonight, pulling out every trick she had. Callie could still sense the darkness that she hadn't been able to unsee since Arizona had showed it to her, but somehow, tonight, she had turned that darkness into something sexy and Callie was panicking because she was unrestrainedly falling for it.

"Christina introduced us." Arizona replied, silently initiating the process by lifting her glass to Callie, licking the salt from her hand and knocking it back. Callie mirrored her movements and the two shared a shudder before each taking a slice of lime between their teeth and biting down.  
"Yeah it's still weird that you two are friends."  
"You're friends with Christina?"  
"Yeah, but us being friends makes sense, we're both cynical and sarcastic. And we share an equal hatred for people in general. I break bones, she cuts up hearts; it works. But you? You're the happy paeds surgeon, fixing children with smiles and rainbows." She teased, crinkling her nose in mock distaste.  
"Oh i get it, you don't think i'm hardcore enough to fit into your little club. Yeah we'll see about that." She said, knocking back another shot before Callie had even registered that she had refilled the glass in her hand.  
Arizona did a double take when she saw that Callie had yet to down the liquid, noticing the faint, inch long scar trailing from her middle knuckle back along her right hand.  
"What happened to your hand?" Arizona asked gently, she was confident in her knowledge of Callie's body, certain that this was entirely new.  
"Oh, it's nothing. I just uh, broke a mirror and the glass kinda cut me. I didn't need stitches or anything. It's okay."  
"Broken mirror huh? Seven years bad luck!" Arizona teased.  
"Ha, I wonder what that would be like." Callie replied darkly.  
"Did you know that tequila is actually an aperitif? It wasn't made to be a shooter at all." She replied, trying to keep the mood casual, despite Callie's obvious dissemblance. She would talk when she was ready.  
"What was it meant to be then?"  
"It was meant to be an appetite stimulant, taken before a meal."  
"You're telling me i can drink tequila before every meal and just be like, 'nope sorry, just stimulating my appetite'?"  
"Yeah i guess you could." Arizona chuckled fondly. "I don't think it would stop people from assuming that you're just an alcoholic though." She handed Callie another shot and they repeated the process again. Callie could definitely feel her inhibitions crumbling away.  
"Are you trying to use my combined love for facts and tequila to get me to give it up on the first date?"  
"Maybe." Arizona teased before holding her tongue between her teeth enticingly. "You see those stars up there?" She continued, pointing to the clear sky above them and lying back on the pillows.  
"Yeah." Callie replied, taking in the sparkle that peppered the sky as she settled back beside Arizona.  
"You belong up there with them." She said as she snaked her fingers between Callie's.  
"What do you mean?" Her breath catching.  
"You're like the stars, an ascension for others to aspire towards. You shine with a fiery beauty, captivating everyone who happens to chance upon you. Calliope, the greek muse of epic poetry, with the beautiful voice. Your legend's already written up there. You're made of star stuff, Callie. You're breathtaking."  
"That's just the tequila talking." Callie tried to joke though tears welled up in her eyes.  
"Nope. Only you could inspire me to feel this way. You're my muse, Calliope."  
Callie bit her lip, tilting her head to the side as she gazed longingly into Arizona's eyes. The calm blue sincerity reflecting back at her robbed her of all restraint, unable to hold back from what she'd been craving since she saw Arizona walk down the hospital stairs, and she leaned forward capturing delicate lips in an outpour of passion. She didn't waste time with chastity, quickly easing her tongue into Arizona's mouth and entertaining a few moments of pure bliss, remembering the way they had loved each other before, in their pretty pink bubble. For a second she pretended they were back there, just for a second, and as she pulled away she kept her eyes closed holding onto that second for as long as reality would let her.  
"When did you get so smooth?" She joked again.  
"Well I had to up my game if i had any hope of winning you back." Arizona breathed.

###

Callie and Christina stood side by side, making notes at the nurses station on the fourth floor. Callie was going about it rather aggressively and it became distracting.  
"What's your problem today?" Christina asked.  
"Nothing." Callie shot her a poisonous glance. "I went on a date with Arizona last night."  
"Oh, so it went bad, huh?"  
"No, it was perfect!" She growled.  
"And why is that a problem."  
"Because i'm-"  
"Oh, no, actually, i don't care." Christina interjected nonchalantly, causing Callie to purse her lips in a snarl.  
"Hey Christina. What time's the surgery on that endocarditis patient?" Meredith asked as she joined them.  
"Huh? Oh you mean Drug Addict Joe, it's at two." Christina shrugged. "Why are you assisting on it again?"  
"He developed an abscess on his spleen from the infection." She replied. "Oh congratulations by the way. For the nomination." She said to Callie.  
"Eh whatever."  
"What's the matter with her?" Meredith asked Christina.  
"She's mad because her date with Robbins went too well last night."  
Meredith scrunched her brow, "and that makes a Harper Avery nomination suck, how?"  
"Because, okay, because this is the best thing thats ever happened in my professional career but i cant enjoy it because my entire life is completely screwed up all because of that stupid freaking plane crash!" Callie exclaimed, throwing her pen at the chart she was writing in.  
"You know, i've been thinking; a lot of bad stuff has happened to us. Like a ridiculous amount of terrible stuff." Meredith said.  
"Have you still got pregnancy brain? Because you're just saying obvious things now." Christina quipped.  
"No, i was thinking back to the first bad thing that happened- George."  
"Uh, what about the bomb in that civil war idiot?"  
"No, those were all dumb things i did to myself. But then i got better and stopped being all suicidey and right after that: bam! George dies."  
"Okay what's your point?"  
"Well it all started happening after my mom died and i washed her ashes down the drain in O.R. 2."  
"You did what?" Callie asked, wide-eyed.  
"I think she's haunting the hospital!"  
"Dammit Mer, you doomed us all. You know what, you don't deserve your fifteen million, i motion that you sign it all over to us."  
"Yeah i kinda agree." Callie added.  
"Do you think we should replace the plumbing in the hospital?"  
"I think we might have to, or else my mother will kill us all eventually." Meredith mused.  
"Oh no, she's not gonna kill me." Callie replied.  
"Hey, why do you get to survive?" Christina pouted.  
"I'm her toy, she's trying to make me kill myself by killing everyone i've ever loved."  
"Oh that's true."  
"Arizona's not dead?" Meredith said.  
"She's a little dead. She's not the same person anymore."  
"I like new Arizona better." Christina shrugged.  
"Yeah she's more interesting now that she's all dark and twisty like us."  
"Oh please you guys are hardly dark and twisty anymore. Playing house, raising babies, living happily ever after." Callie cringed in disgust.  
"How is that not the definition of dark and twisty?" Christina asked. "What could be more terrifying than having a man inject his spawn into you only for it to expand and burst forth from your vagina nine months later?"  
"You need to speak at high schools." Callie raised her eyebrows.  
"Okay that's our que to leave." Meredith began leading Christina away.  
"No seriously, that little speech will end teen pregnancy!" Callie called after them.

###

"Hey, Callie. Here's your phone." Arizona smiled, handing the object over.  
"Oh, thanks. Um not that i don't appreciate it, but why exactly did you insist on getting it for me?" Callie used a soft tone, trying not to give away that her heart was racing.  
"Dr. Weaver suggested starting very small with regaining trust. By allowing each other to do little things like running an errand or bringing each other small gifts like coffee or donuts," she winked. "and then gradually we move on to bigger things and eventually we trust each other again."  
"Arizona?" Her voice became hollow.  
"Yeah?"  
"I um, i got offered a job in New york, at the Hospital for Special Surgery- it's a horrible name for a hospital, i know, but they're the number one orthopedic hospital in the country and they want me. Me! They offered me head of department and my own cartilage lab with funding for research and staff. My own staff."  
"Wow, Callie!" Arizona grinned. "Well i'm not surprised that they want you, you're pretty amazing." She winked. "I bet they weren't to pleased when you turned them down."  
"I um, i didn't."  
"You said yes?" Arizona asked incredulously.  
"No, i didn't, but i'm thinking that maybe i should."  
"But what about your shares here? You're a board member and, and" Arizona said, shaking her head. "Me, I'm not in New York." She finished quietly.  
"Yeah, i kinda thought it could be a blank slate, you know." Callie said gently.  
"Oh." Arizona suddenly found it difficult to breathe. She watched as Callie turned away to give her some space. "No, you know what? No." Arizona ran forward to overtake Callie. "We decided to work on this thing together. We decided to try and you running away to some magical new hospital after a week isn't trying. its not some short cut to skipping the pain, it's just escaping but it's not going to help because whatever you're running away from is inside you not inside this hospital and the only way to fix it is to find closure, here with me. And then you know what, after that, if you wanna move away then go but don't leave us dangling from a what if because you're scared because it's not fair to you and it's not fair to me either." Arizona exploded, unable to keep passive.  
Callie stared at Arizona with a little bit of wonder in her eyes.  
"What?" Arizona exclaimed, still feeling a little sensitive.  
"Nothing. You're just, You're absolutely right. Wow, usually Mark was the only one who could make me see i was being an idiot. That therapist of yours has taught you some tricks." Before Arizona could reply, Callie lent forward spontaneously to seal the moment, softly with her lips. Arizona tensed at the contact, caught in a desperate internal struggle between giving Callie enough to let her know she was enjoying the kiss but not so much that Callie could actually taste her.  
"Well i've um, always been an incredibly talented student." Arizona replied flirtatiously, and peeking under her eyelashes hoping to divert the moment.  
"Mhmm, i'll see you later." Callie replied before walking away, prompting Arizona to let out a sigh of relief, but halfway through her retreat Callie turned around to speak again, "Oh, and just because i'm ignoring that for the sake of the moment, doesn't mean you aren't in trouble for the tobacco i just tasted."

###

Christina walked into Mr. Blakes room with Brooks in tow, and spoke, barely paying the man any attention while Brooks completed the post-op exam  
"Good evening, sir, how are you feeling?"  
"Evening Doc, kinda sore, do you think you could up the pain meds a bit."  
"Ah, the junkie's equivalent of the dog ate my homework." Christina replied sarcastically. "We performed a full mitral valve replacement as the valve was too damaged for repair. The abscess on your spleen had no complications. The entire surgery was performed flawlessly. You should experience a lot of bodily scarring especially around your injection sites, the tattoos on your chest and abdomen were compromised by the incisions as well, nothing you can't live with." She shrugged before entertained a brief non-verbal conversation for Brooks, ascertaining that the patient was fine before ordering her to her side. "You will be here for three weeks recovery time during which you will receive high doses of antibiotics to destroy the infection in you heart tissue after which you will need to return regularly for the following three weeks to continue the treatment while you recover at home. If you choose not to come in, you will die. If you keep taking drugs you will die anyway." Christina said lightly.  
The man looked as if he was about to cry, sensing this Christina tried to make a quick escape. "If you have any questions the nurse will be available and you will be informed of rehabilitation programs over the next few weeks." She concluded and walked out.  
"I wonder if he can do that weird death screaming thing. Ooh can you?" Brooks asked excitedly.  
"No."  
"I tried once but i just ended up coughing for ten minutes. It's much harder than it looks."  
"Fascinating."

###

Callie and Arizona sat on a bench watching Sofia while she ran around throwing lumps of bread at the ducks swimming in the little body of water. The day was bright and clear but the air held the tell tale bite of the end of summer. The three girls were dressed warmly enough, but Callie and Arizona didn't supplement their comfort by sitting closely to each other- there was an almost Platonic gap between them and their conversation held the polite indifference of words unsaid. Their position with each other was still unsure and so each was tentative to push their thinly renewed bonds with overfamiliarity. They were trying though. They were both trying. Longing glances punctuated their infrequent chatter, they smiled easily, laughed freely and for the second time that week they were interrupted by the insistence of a cellphone. Arizona gave Callie a smile as she rose and walked a few feet away, towards a tall woody tree, to take the call. Callie watched Sofia as she ran around haphazardly on her wobbly legs and she smiled proudly to herself. Glancing over to include Arizona in her nostalgic moment, Callie watched as her eyes grew wide and her entire figure sagged visibly. A pale hand shuddered a path toward her mouth as she listened to words she wished to unhear. Callie made to stand, to rush to her side but at the same moment Arizona slipped her phone back into the pocket of her long black coat and walked numbly back towards the bench. Callie closed the distance with two long strides and guided her back to the bench.  
"Arizona whats the matter? Who was that?" Callie whispered, very worried.  
"Um that, that was... Nick he, he... He-" she was unable to finish, finally being overcome by tears.  
Callie wrapped her in a sideways hug, rubbing her arm hard in an attempt to sooth her. "What did he say?"  
Arizona shook her head but through her sobs she was able to choke out the two words she hoped she would never have to say, "he's dead."

I came to realize that nobody normal could have come up with that advice. Only somebody damaged, somebody who spent all day making scars could think about them enough to come to love them and appreciate them. As a surgeon i think it helped me to think of scars nostalgically because a lot of the time scars piss me off, getting in the way during procedures. Taking valuable time while i remove them and accommodate them. It took a psychopath to teach me to love my scars or at least respect them. We all have darkness inside us, he helped me understand a little bit of mine and immediately i became less scared of myself. You only understand darkness once you've lived in it. And only then can you appreciate the light.


	9. Beyond the shadows

9. Beyond the shadows

Soil. It's the ground we walk on. Its the base of life. It's where the food chain begins and where it ends. It's fundamental. There's this pathogen that lives in soil, called Clostridium botulinum, it's one of the bad ones. The ones that you cant cure. It gets on your vegetables, in your honey; in your canned foods. If it gets into your bloodstream it works pretty slowly, gradually paralyzing your entire body until you suffocate because your chest wont inflate anymore and you die in the immobile tomb of yourself. Plastic surgeons have a special name for this toxin, they call it Botox.

"It's only natural to be afraid, Death is what we spend our whole lives moving towards. It waits silently at the end of the road watching us through our journey, but sometimes death gets impatient and it takes people from us before it's supposed to. I never used to be afraid of dying, how could i be when i grew up too busy dreading the moment when a man in a suit would knock on my door and tell me my father had been killed in duty. Or my brother." She smirked at the irony. "Growing up i didn't have many friends, being a military brat, i never made friends very easily to begin with so i ended up tagging along with Tim and his friends. We met Nick when i was 8 years old, he took one look at me and told me that i was 'too pink' and that Arizona was a terrible name." She chuckled lightly. "Ever since that day he's been my second brother. There were two times in my life that i don't think i would have survived if it hadn't been for him, he reminded me to fear death a little myself when all i wanted in those moments was to embrace it. He taught me to be strong, to be proud and to be confident in who i am. He was a good man, he was my best friend, he was my date to every school dance. He was the boy who teased me for having a funny name." Arizona paused, taking a second to will the tears away.  
"I spent a large part of my life worrying that the people i loved would abandon me, but the one person i never worried about was Nick because he was smart and resourceful and he didn't join the damn Marines. But i lost him anyway and that makes me angry. That makes me really mad because he was supposed to stay." Arizona looked over at the front row to where Callie was sitting, dressed modestly in black just like everyone else in attendance that day, and staring purposely at the grass under her feet. She took a deep breath and continued more calmly than before.  
"But todays not about me, or you; its about Nick and I'm gonna make it the day he wanted it to be because even though life doesn't ever go the way we want it to, we all deserve one day. You all know what Nick's like." She smiled halfheartedly and nodded at the few men at the back of the congregation who were standing on the paved road beside a long black car.  
They pulled the coffin out of the back and positioned themselves on the path towards the grave. Just then music started playing and the men began to walk. As the men reached the first chair the gravely voice of Axl Rose echoed through the air.

Take me down to paradise city

Where the grass is green

And the girls are pretty

Oh, oh take me home.

Arizona walked forwards to take a seat beside Callie. They didn't look at each other, they didn't touch, but they were each consumed by the others presence. Callie tried to remain impassive as Arizona wept silently beside her. Callie was angry, she was so angry that it was taking every ounce of her self control for her not to leap up and sprint away; to scream and hit something. She found she wanted to hit Arizona. She found she wanted to hit herself too. The chair she sat upon was metal and it was imbued with the chill in the air. Callie embraced it, focusing on the cold, absorbing it into herself as if the ice quelled the rage inside of her. It was something she felt often of late, but today it had concentrated to the point where she felt her sanity slipping. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to comfort Arizona, she didn't want to feel the tugging in her chest at the sight of her falling apart. A part of her hated Arizona for putting her in this position in the first place, a part of her hated herself for it too. She felt torn in two, because all the anger she felt in the moment came from the overwhelming desire to sweep Arizona into her arm and kiss the tears away. She needed a drink. Her fists curled more tightly around the base of her seat as a desperate whimper echoed softly beside her.

From the corner of her eye, Callie noticed Arizona draw a glint of silver from her coat pocket. She stared unabashedly as she unscrewed the cap and took a swig. Her eyebrows raised in shock at Arizona's uncharacteristic behaviour. The desperate internal struggle that had ruled Callie all day quietened to the calming blue as Arizona smiled sheepishly and proffered the hip flask. She accepted it, taking a long draught of what she discovered was tequila, she shuddered at the burn. She took a deep breath before one last pull, slowly feeling herself relax. She handed the flask back with an appreciative nod.

"Um, should i be worried about you having a drinking problem?" Callie teased as they joined the procession down to the reception.  
"No." She shrugged. "It's just slightly more appropriate than a cigarette right now."  
"Should i be worried about you having a smoking problem?" Callie raised her eyebrows.  
"No, Callie." She smiled weakly. "I'm just taking some time to heal, but i'm working through it. I'm not bottling it up like i usually would have. I'm going to be okay, you don't need to worry." She looked her sincerely in the eye.  
"Okay." Callie nodded.  
"And you, are you doing okay?"  
"Of course." She answered too quickly, causing her to balk for a second. "No, i'm fine. Everything's fine."  
"Callie?"  
"Mmm."  
Arizona hesitated for a moment before resigning to believe that Callie would talk to her when she was ready. She didn't want to push things too fast.  
"Thank you for insisting on coming with me today."  
"I couldn't let you do this on your own." She shrugged. No matter what, she wasn't over Arizona and despite all logical protest she couldn't abandon her now. Just then a pager went off.  
"Damn it." Callie whispered angrily. "Im sorry but i have to go."  
"It's okay, i understand."  
As she made to walk away Arizona pulled her back and kissed her gently. Callie kept her eyes closed as Arizona pulled away, drinking in the moment. She squeezed her hand tenderly before heading up to her car.

###

Callie walked into the E.R. making straight for Dr. Kepner at the nurses station.  
"What have we got Kepner?" She asked lightly.  
"Oh, Dr. Torres, bed 3. A man fell out of a tree while trying to rescue his cat, he's stable but scans show multiple breaks." She handed over the x-rays that were sitting in front of her.  
"Yeah, these'll need surgery." She said, holding the scans up to the light. "Hey, intern?" She called the nearest one.  
"Yes, Dr. Torres?"  
"Wanna help me fix some bones?"  
"Absolutely!"  
"Great, go book and O.R. and prep bed three for me, please."  
"Sure thing."  
"So uh, the big day's coming up, huh. How are you feeling?" Callie smiled at April.  
"Oh thank god you asked. Every time i think about it i feel like up going to throw up. Or pass out. Or both." He eyes became wide. "Is that normal? Is that how every one feels before they get married? How on earth do they manage it? What if i do that on the day? Oh god." April's voice rose gradually with every word.  
"Woah, April! Calm down. It's fine, they're just pre-wedding jitters. It's totally normal. Just remember not to lock your knees while you're standing at the alter because then you will pass out. I learned that the hard way."  
"You passed out during one of your weddings?" April asked horrified.  
"Oh, no. Of course not. The first one i was too drunk on adrenalin to be nervous and the second one. Well you were there for that one. No i passed out while giving a speech in the fourth grade. I was teased until middle school for that." She gave a sour look.  
"What did they call you?"  
"Never mind that." Callie pursed her lips.  
"Callie Coma! No, um sandman! Ooh, sleeping beauty!" April teased.  
"You know what? Lock your knees tomorrow. I hope you do pass out and puke on yourself." Callie retorted with feigned irritation.

###

Arizona walked down the hallway along the surgical floor already wearing her cheery pink scrub cap. The familiar sound of a melody permeated the hall, it being fairly common for doctors to listen to music during routine surgeries. As she was closing in on O.R. 2 the door to the left burst open and an exasperated Christina walked out.  
"Oh please tell me you're here to fix your marriage so your wife will listen to better music?"  
"What do you mean? Callie has great taste in music." Arizona replied.  
"She did. Now it's all heavy and depressing." Christina grimaced. "I just spent the past hour and a half of my mitral valve repair reminding myself that the scalpel was for surgery not for slitting my wrists." She replied sarcastically.  
"Oh does that mean you're done with your O.R.? I've got an appendectomy, i mean it's non-emergent, but i was hoping to squeeze it in now so i could get off little early to buy a dress for April's wedding." Arizona grinned.  
"Ugh dress shopping? I thought you were better than that Robbins." She shook her head. "And no, they're busy prepping for Bailey's laparotomy, so you'll have to wait to go buy your pretty little princess gown."  
Arizona pursed her lips as Christina pouted and tottered away in a mocking representation of prissiness, "i was planning on getting something super sexy so i could seduce Callie into opening up to me a little bit and then maybe she'll pick a better playlist next time you're both on the O.R. floor." She called before Christina was out of earshot.  
She huffed into O.R. 2, picking up a mask to cover her face and was met with understanding for Christina's mood a few moments ago. She scrunched her brow as she listened to the lyrics play out, completely forgetting why she'd walked in in the first place.

Paint a perfect picture of

Everything i thought that this would be

But heres the truth

Its never easy

"Dr. Robbins?" Callie called for the second time, snapping her back to her senses."Can i help you.?"

Strike a match and light the fuse

As everything we were goes up in flames

"Yeah, i was just wondering If i could hijack your O.R. for an appy before your next surgery so i could get off early today?"

But heres the truth

Its gonna kill me

"Oh, yeah sure." She nodded. "Bump my next surgery back an hour, please Linda." She addressed a scrub nurse.

Facing all my demons

Leaving all behind

"Thanks, Dr. Torres."

I see now you're the reason

I don't wanna be here,

"Sure thing, so uh why do you need to get off early?"

So I will move on

"Oh, i was going to get a dress for April's wedding. Did uh, did you maybe wanna go to that together?" She asked shyly.

I'll be the last one standing

"Oh, um, i kinda already have a date for that."

And die tasting your tears,

"You do?"

Now you're drowning your sorrows

"Yeah, sorry."  
"You, you um-" Arizona was becoming flustered.

And I'll just disappear

"Can you turn that off?" Arizona snapped at the scrub nurse.  
"Hey! I was listening to that." Callie complained as the music cut out.  
"I don't even know what that was. You never listen to that kind of music."  
"It was 12 Stones, it's great and i got it from Dr. Karev!" Callie glared at her. "Who are you to dictate what i do and don't listen to anyway?"  
"Fine, whatever. Listen to whatever you want. Let's get back to the part about you going on a date with some one else."  
"I can date whoever i want, Arizona. We aren't together anymore." Callie replied quietly, looking down at her patient.  
"Oh 'we're not together', seriously, you're gonna pull that line on me again?" Arizona took a more aggressive stance. "What happened to trying?"  
"I never said i was done trying. I am trying, but that doesn't mean we're exclusive. The way i see it, we stopped being exclusive the moment you screwed another woman in an on-call room." A few seconds of silence passed, the entire O.R. suddenly unaware of where to look or how to act.  
"Fine. Then i guess you won't mind if i bring my own date. Page me when you're done with the O.R." Arizona yelled as she stormed out.  
Callie stared at the door for a full minute, breathing heavily, in an attempt to control her rage before she got back to work.  
"Turn the music back on!" She snapped at the room.

###

"How was the funeral?"  
"It was okay, as okay as it could have been. Callie came with me even though i told her i didn't expect her to. I think maybe it was a little easier for me than Tim's death because i knew it was coming, you know? I had time to prepare myself. With Tim i was holding onto false hope that he'd be okay because my dad was always okay, so it was a huge shock for me when he died. I mostly feel angry about Nick." The sleeves of her white coat were pulled over her hands and she addressed them as she spoke.  
"And why is that?"  
"Because he waited so long to get help. I mean it was a full blown illness, how could he be so stupid to think he could just will away bone cancer!?"  
"Isn't his behaviour fairly similar to your approach regarding your PTSD?"  
"That's not the same thing at all!"  
"Just because yours was an illness of the mind doesn't make it any less real or any less debilitating than his illness of the body."  
"So you're saying i have no right to be angry at him when I'm just as bad as he is?"  
"Not at all. I think you should be angry. Be very angry, as angry as you need to be. Embrace it and then remember that you have the ability to relate to it. Then you'll be able to understand it and accept it. Learn something for next time."  
"Oh." Arizona lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Turning the words over in her head.  
"How have you been coping? Has Nick's death brought about acuteness of your anxiety?"  
"No, i don't think so. I haven't had a nightmare since before i found out and i've been sleeping okay, i guess. I mean i haven't been sleeping less."  
"And your phantom limb?"  
"It happens less and less. Sometimes i still have to get the mirror out though because it still gets hard to breathe sometimes, but it's not worse either."  
"You said Callie came with you to the funeral?"  
"Yeah." Arizona smiled. "It was really sweet, more than i expected of her. She even made fun of me for drinking tequila and wanting a cigarette. But she was kinda strange at the same time, she seemed tense, that's why i pulled the tequila out in the first place. I thought it'd relax her a bit."  
"And did it?"  
"Yes. She let me kiss her goodbye, i mean i know she could have just been appeasing me but i felt her kiss back, you know? I felt her."  
"Why do you think she was tense?"  
"I uh, i don't really know. Nothing's been the same ever since... Actually nothing's been the same for so long. I don't even remember what being happy feels like anymore. But Callie took me cheating really hard. I mean of course she did. It was the worst thing i could have ever done. It was the biggest mistake i've ever made in my entire life. Geez, who would have thought i would screw up so many times. Its actually embarrassing. I always thought i was better than this. I guess it was just narcissistic of me." Arizona shook her head. "Shes just so inconsistent, it's driving me crazy, one second she's kissing me and teasing me and the next shes trying to move to new york and taking some random person to Aprils wedding instead of me."

"Could it be that she's just scared? Like you say, you have a habit of screwing things up."

"I just thought that she wasn't sure of what she wanted, i thought maybe she just needed time to ease me back into her life, but yeah i guess that could be because she's scared of me hurting her again. I suppose that's a pretty valid fear."

"Have you tried talking to her about any of this?"

"No. I've been trying to give her some space. I didn't want to get too personal too fast, because she's seemed really fragile. But i'm really starting to get worried about her, it's not getting better."

"How has she been fragile?"

"She's been inconsistent, like i said. She looks tired all the time and i think, you know, i think she's lost a lot of weight. I mean she only just healed from the heart thing so that could be a reason but the fact that that even happened in the first place?" Arizona shook her head. "Christina told me that she's been listening to a lot of angry music. Oh, and her hand! I have no idea what she did to her hand but it's, it looks like she's been getting into fights. Im just, im getting really worried about her."

"I think perhaps she could benefit from having a few sessions with me, the behaviour you're describing does sound worrying. I think things have been just as hard on her as they have been on you. I'm also worried that you're avoiding the hard conversations, there are still a lot of things you two need to discuss and put past you. I don't think ignoring them will help either of you."

"Do you think this is a mistake? Trying again. Am i still being selfish by holding on to her instead of letting her move on and heal. I dont think she's strong enough to walk away from me on her own. But then sometimes i feel like she's a second away from telling me to go to hell."

"By the sound of it I'm not sure she's figured out what she wants yet herself."

"So how do i help her figure it out? Because this back and forth is giving me vertigo."

"Maybe you should start with what you want. Make up your mind, be sure and then show her consistency. Then she can figure out whether she wants those things too, and you can go from there. So, what do you want, Arizona?"

"I want her. But i... I want her happy. I cant live with myself knowing that she's broken. That I'm the one breaking her. I always believed she was my soul mate, i still do. But maybe im not hers. Do i need to let her go?

"These are all good questions, but you dont need to choose what to feel yet. Just be patient and the answers will become clear in time. Things will get better, or they'll get worse, and then you'll know."

"So keep trying?"

"Give her a sign that this is real. Let her figure out what she wants and then you can go from there."

###

A light rain was falling. It was noon and all the doctors of Grey-Sloan Memorial were gathered in a small church politely chatting to each other as they waited for the procession to begin. Everybody was dressed formally, creating a picturesque scene, all seated on oiled teak pews. A plush red carpet underfoot leading up to the the raised area in the front where three woman with April-red hair stood in matching lime green dresses. On the other side was Matthew's best man, wearing a black suit with a gunmetal grey waist coat and matching lime green tie.  
The doctors were clustered in the middle two rows on the left hand side of the church.  
"Shouldn't this have started like a half-hour ago?" Christina complained.  
"What are you so impatient about?" Meredith asked in an uncharacteristically sweet tone, Bailey rocking in her arms.  
"Ugh wedding's are so boring. All it is is one mushy face blabbing to another mushy face. Nothing interesting ever happens."  
"No way, wedding's are great. They're sweet and magical and there's loads of food." Callie added. "It's the marriage that sucks." Her date sat beside her, diligently texting away, not paying any attention to their conversation.  
"I still think Mer had the right idea with her post-it. Maybe there's something to it, i can't think of any other reason why the most emotionally unstable of all of us had the best marriage." Christina justified.  
"Hey!" Meredith chastised.  
"Maybe it's one of those karmic things, like you have a great wedding so karma has to balance it out by screwing you over and making anyone you marry a cheating whore." Callie wondered.  
"No that can't be it, your second marriage wasn't a real one." Christina reasoned.  
"It was more real than my over-night stint in Vegas."  
"I think we should probably just stop trying to get married."  
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

Arizona tried to ignore their conversation from where she sat one row back and on the opposite side of the pew by talking to her date. She had scrambled last minute for the most attractive woman she could find, hoping to spark a little jealousy in Callie. She didn't even seem to have noticed Arizona however.  
"So Amy, what made you decide to specialize in anaesthesiology?"

The doors at the back of the room swung ajar, everyone turned to look anticipating the beginning on the ceremony, but seeing only a distressed-looking April gesturing to one of her sisters everybody turned back. The muttering redoubled as April's sister rushed down the aisle out of the room. She returned a few minutes later walking more slowly and looking sheepish. As she got to the front she cleared her throat to get everybody's attention.  
"Excuse me everybody, my name is Alice, i'm April's sister." She spoke hesitantly with a slight country drawl. "Um, so unfortunately it seems that the uh, the groom has done a runner on us today." The announcement was met with loud gasps along with Christina's absolute glee.  
"Maybe i was wrong, this is getting interesting." She muttered to Callie and Meredith.  
"Um we're very sorry for the um, inconvenience? Um but we invite you to still meet us in the reception hall in a few minutes for lunch. April's uh, gone home though." She paused again, looking at her two sister's for help. "Um thank you for coming out here anyway to join us for um, lunch." She ended awkwardly and then joined her sisters and the best man, running out of the room.  
The chatter increased in volume as everyone took their time in leaving. Before anyone could make it to the doors however, they burst open yet again.  
"Don't marry him!" Jackson exclaimed as he ran through. His face fell into confusion as he saw the crowd all on their feet, staring at him; no April in sight. He put his hand up to cover his face as he was stared at by the shocked room.  
"Um never mind." He said more quietly, thinking that he'd arrived too late.  
"How is it that April has the most interesting wedding out of all of us!?" Christina exclaimed. "She's the most boring person we know!" They made their way up the aisle, Callie's forgotten date bringing up the rear.  
"Don't worry Romeo, Paramedic did a runner. April left like ten minutes ago." Christina patted him on the shoulder.  
"What?" Jackson looked up, wide-eyed.  
"You might want to reconsider your game plan though." Callie mused. "Weddings are bad juju."  
Jackson threw her a quizzical look before running out of the church after April.

###

Arizona could feel her eyes drooping as she spoke to Amy. She was a sweet girl but Arizona found that she just couldn't bring herself to care about anything she said. Needing an out she excused herself to the bathroom. As she walked through the door she pressed herself against it and felt a rush of relief, she sighed, eyes closed, enjoying the knowledge that she was free for a few minutes while she thought up an excuse to leave.  
"Your date's going that bad, huh?" Callie chuckled as she looked at Arizona through the mirror.  
"Ugh, you have no idea."  
"I have a bit of an idea." Callie reasoned, thinking about her own date.  
"What happened with yours?"  
"She's an infant, yours?"  
"Straight." She shrugged.  
"Ha! You're telling me you've never turned a straight girl before."  
"Oh, i've turned plenty of straight girls. She was definitely interested, she knew what this was." Arizona boasted.  
"Then what was the problem?"  
"She just, she wasn't you." She said quietly.  
They looked intently at each other and Arizona walked forward, slowly closing the space between them. Their hearts began to race as they moved in slow motion. They wrapped their arms around each other only breaking eye contact when Arizona glanced down to Callie's lips.  
"Please..." Callie whispered moving her face away. "I can't."  
Arizona nodded and made to move away feeling deflated but Callie didn't loosen the grip around her. She conceded to hold her, moving forward to rest her head on Callie's chest. Arizona felt a cheek press into her hair as they each took in a ragged breath. Callie tightened her grip as she let a single tear slip down into the gold. They stood like that for a long while before one of them spoke.

"You lost what made you you, or maybe i never knew, but i can't stay here anymore. I can't spend every second wondering if I'm about to lose you forever. So please i just need to know if you're in this with me or if I'm wasting my time, Callie. I just need some consistency, please."

"I'm not the inconsistent one in this relationship, Arizona. I haven't ever walked away from you. You've abandoned me more times than i can count." Callie said quietly.

"You're right. I had a lot of growing up to do, a lot of things to think about and a lot of problems to work through. But i've come so far, Callie, and i believe that we can get through this stronger than we ever were before, together. I am so sorry that this is how we turned out but i need you in my life. I've had my wake up call, let me prove to you that i won't ever walk away again?"

"Are you saying that you're all in? Because if you are then you need to know that this is it, You don't get to walk away again. You don't get to shut me out and pretend like you're okay when you're not, and leave me broken while you go off to fix yourself. You don't get to come back later and force your way back in. This is it Arizona."

"I am all in, Callie. Today i understand more about you and about me than i ever have before. I know that you are far more than i will ever deserve but i am still head over heels in love with you. I am one hundred percent sure about you. I'm never going to walk away again. So Calliope Torres, i started this in a bathroom all those years ago when all i knew about you was that you were the hot ortho surgeon that nobody could stop talking about." Arizona smiled coyly. "It seems only fitting that we're in a bathroom again." Arizona opened her palm to proffer the ring that Callie had returned back in her hospital bed. "Will you please do me the honour, of calling yourself my wife again?"

Callie tilted her head to the side, her eyes still teary from before. She was taken aback by Arizona's gesture. She shook her head, "No." She watched Arizona's face fall and her hand slowly close over the silver band, her own eyes flooding with tears. Callie lifted her hand to cup her cheek and bring blue eyes back up to meet hers. "But i will be your girlfriend. This time we're going to do things the right way, no more skipping steps. We're going to take things really slowly, Okay?"  
Arizona exhaled with visible relief, she nodded her head weakly before leaning forward to embrace Callie. They both needed the comfort.  
"Okay." She whispered.

Lots of things in life are scary. I think we tend to be the most scared of the things we know the least about. But something i've learned about life; about people, is that just because something seems a certain way from the outside doesn't mean that thats what it is. We aren't defined by our most obvious traits. I'm deeper than the stories that are told about me. I am the sum of all of my parts. I might be apt to paralyze you and make your soul scream mercy, but if you take a step back and find out who i really am you might find that if you go about me the right way i can smooth out your wrinkles and give you back the confidence you lost long ago. You might find that i was all you needed to feel beautiful again.


End file.
